About 80 million connected TVs should ship this year, up from 60 million last year, and tech giant Adobe Systems is aiming to play a role in capturing both browser-based and app-centric alternative viewing.

We spoke to Adobe's Jens Loeffler, a technical evangelist for the company, and CNET's senior writer Maggie Reardon interviewed him for Beet.TV.  

"From an evolution perspective, it's hard to tell what the direction is. It seems to be going towards the application model but things could change quickly," he said. "We see a drive towards applications from a user experience perspective."

The application model can also give programmers more control of the look and feel of their content on connected TVs.

Even so, Loeffler added that browser-based models for content on connected TVs are still playing out in the marketplace and Adobe is aiming to support them. Adobe has also been ramping up its TV Everywhere services and signed new content providers this fall to power authentication models for them.

This segment was taped at a two-hour session at the Manhattan offices of Livestream.

Daisy Whitney