A network device to support quality-aware adaptive media streaming over a network, the network device comprising: a transceiver to receive a manifest file that defines hierarchical levels including an adaptation set level encompassing a plurality of other levels including a representation level and a segment level, the hierarchical levels including information characterizing encoded portions of media content available for adaptive streaming; and circuitry configured to: obtain, from a bandwidth attribute parsed from the segment level of the manifest file of the plurality of other levels of the manifest file, bandwidth information that specifies segment or sub-segment bitrate values associated with the encoded portions of the media content; and obtain, from a quality attribute of the media content parsed from the plurality of other levels of the manifest file, first quality information that specifies media quality values associated with the encoded portions of the media content; and wherein the quality attribute comprises a quality metric selected from the group consisting of video multi-scale structural similarity, MS-SSIM, video mean opinion score, VMOS, video quality metrics, VQM, structural similarity metrics, SSIM, peak signal-to-noise ratio, PSNR, and perceptual evaluation of video quality metrics, PEVQ; and the circuitry is further configured to: obtain, from a minimum and maximum quality attribute parsed from the adaptation set level of the manifest file, second quality information that specifies respective minimum and maximum video quality values of the encoded portions of the media content; dynamically switch streaming between different encoded portions of the media content based on the bandwidth information and on the first and second quality information of a selected stream to maintain a desired video quality value. a transceiver to receive a manifest file that defines hierarchical levels including an adaptation set level encompassing a plurality of other levels including a representation level and a segment level, the hierarchical levels including information characterizing encoded portions of media content available for adaptive streaming; and circuitry configured to: obtain, from a bandwidth attribute parsed from the segment level of the manifest file of the plurality of other levels of the manifest file, bandwidth information that specifies segment or sub-segment bitrate values associated with the encoded portions of the media content; and obtain, from a quality attribute of the media content parsed from the plurality of other levels of the manifest file, first quality information that specifies media quality values associated with the encoded portions of the media content; and wherein the quality attribute comprises a quality metric selected from the group consisting of video multi-scale structural similarity, MS-SSIM, video mean opinion score, VMOS, video quality metrics, VQM, structural similarity metrics, SSIM, peak signal-to-noise ratio, PSNR, and perceptual evaluation of video quality metrics, PEVQ; and obtain, from a bandwidth attribute parsed from the segment level of the manifest file of the plurality of other levels of the manifest file, bandwidth information that specifies segment or sub-segment bitrate values associated with the encoded portions of the media content; and obtain, from a quality attribute of the media content parsed from the plurality of other levels of the manifest file, first quality information that specifies media quality values associated with the encoded portions of the media content; and wherein the quality attribute comprises a quality metric selected from the group consisting of video multi-scale structural similarity, MS-SSIM, video mean opinion score, VMOS, video quality metrics, VQM, structural similarity metrics, SSIM, peak signal-to-noise ratio, PSNR, and perceptual evaluation of video quality metrics, PEVQ; and the circuitry is further configured to: obtain, from a minimum and maximum quality attribute parsed from the adaptation set level of the manifest file, second quality information that specifies respective minimum and maximum video quality values of the encoded portions of the media content; dynamically switch streaming between different encoded portions of the media content based on the bandwidth information and on the first and second quality information of a selected stream to maintain a desired video quality value. obtain, from a minimum and maximum quality attribute parsed from the adaptation set level of the manifest file, second quality information that specifies respective minimum and maximum video quality values of the encoded portions of the media content; dynamically switch streaming between different encoded portions of the media content based on the bandwidth information and on the first and second quality information of a selected stream to maintain a desired video quality value.