Several years ago I worked on a research project for a major U.S. newspaper. One outcome was this: not everybody wanted to pay for the whole paper. They’d rather spend a quarter for Sports than 50 cents for everything.

The same can be said about cable TV. Not everybody wants 500 channels. Not everybody wants to subscribe to a series of premium channels when all they want is one.

SyncTV is seeking to break the current business model where single programs can be bought at iTunes or Amazon Unbox for $2 or streamed for free from ad-supported network sites. SyncTV will allow people to subscribe to a specific channel and download any program from it.

The service, which will cost $2-$4 per channel a month, will be offered in “home-theater quality” (DVD quality) with some programming in high-definition. SyncTV brings a la carte programming to the masses, where viewers pay only for the channels they want to watch. (FAQ.)

That rejoicing you hear. It’s all the video geeks I know reacting to the news that their favorite Website for video sharing, the venerable YouTube, is testing high-quality video streaming that may debut to the public in February.

Loud cheering. High-fiving. Chest-thumping.

YouTube co-founder Steve Chen confirmed at the NewTeeVee conference yesterday that high-quality video streams are coming soon, telling cnet that these vids will be available to everybody within three months.

Chen said YouTube is testing a player that detects the speed of the viewer’s Internet connection and serves up higher-quality video if the user wants it.

Miro, the free open-source video player, has reached 1.0 and launched a spiffy player for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Drop what you’re doing and go get it.

Miro is that good.

Miro is an alternative to Joost, Windows Media, and iTunes for downloading, watching, and organizing your video. We wrote on it extensively in July, and since then it has improved even more.

Its advantages are listed on the Miro Website, but to summarize:

• It’s open-source
• It’s DRM-free
• It’s friendly to all content creators, professional and user-generated alike
• It’s high definition
• It’s BitTorrent enabled
• It has 2,700 channels listed in the Miro Guide
• Of those 2,700, about 200 are from commercial broadcasters
• It connects you to all the video-sharing sites like YouTube
• Miro uses the VLC video engine to play nearly every video format known to man

And so on.

The social networking wars are pretty intense these days. Bebo, the global social site popular in the U.K. and Ireland, is differentiating itself from MySpace, Facebook, and the Google Open Social effort by aligning with TV, film, and music companies.

Bebo announced today Open Media, a new “platform” that gives users the ability to add top-shelf video and music content to their profile pages and share it with others on the network. They become “fans” of a series the same way they can add people as “friends.”

At the same time, Bebo is allowing its diverse content partners like the BBC, CBS, Channel 4, ESPN, Ministry of Sound, MTV Networks, Turner, Ustream, and Yahoo! to use their video players to distribute their content and retain all of the advertising-related revenue.

I want to scream. The reason I like downloading TV shows from iTunes or Amazon Unbox is I can watch them later, when I have time. I pay for that privilege, and for no advertising during the show.

So here comes NBC Direct, the now-in-beta ad-supported service from NBC that lets you download full episodes of the network’s shows to your computer. But guess what? You’ve got 48 hours to view them. In fact, NBC makes the shows available for only seven days after initial airing.

That episode of “The Office” I missed two weeks ago when the DVR failed to record — gone, no longer available on NBC Direct. Same for the first few episodes of “30 Rock.” So what’s the point of a video download service that makes you stick to a schedule, just like network TV?