Carriage of media content quality information

A user equipment (UE) operable to perform media content playback using media content quality information, the UE comprising one or more processors configured to:

• receive, at the UE, a quality extension descriptor from a network element that describes quality metadata in quality access units, the quality access units being associated with one or more media access units in a media content stream representation to be received at the UE;
• receive, from the network element, the quality access units in a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-2 transport stream (TS) with the media access units in the media content stream representation;
• identify, at the UE, the quality metadata from the quality access units in the MPEG-2 TS based on the quality extension descriptor;
• and
• provide the media access units and the quality metadata to a media content player of the UE to initiate the media content playback, wherein the media content player is configured to adapt at least one of:
• a media content bitrate, a resolution or a frame rate based on the quality metadata.

At least one non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions embodied thereon for receiving Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-2 streaming video quality information at a user equipment (UE), the instructions when executed cause the UE to perform the following:

• receiving, using at least one processor of the UE, a quality extension descriptor from a network element that describes quality metadata in quality access units, the quality access units being associated with one or more media access units in a media content stream representation to be received at the UE;
• receiving, using at least one processor of the UE, from the network element the quality access units in a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-2 transport stream (TS) with the media access units in the media content stream representation;
• and
• extracting, using at least one processor of the UE, the quality metadata from the quality access units in the MPEG-2 TS based on the quality extension descriptor, wherein the quality metadata is used during playback of the media access units at the UE.