Quality Of Experience Research Articles

NOMA Assisted Two-Tier VR Content Transmission: A Tile-Based Approach for QoE Optimization

Virtual reality (VR) provides users with an immersive and interactive experience through head-mounted devices, which has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Specifically, tile-based VR content transmission provides a promising approach to alleviate the conflict between limited bandwidth and high-performance requirements (e.g., high-resolution and low-delay). However, the tiling pattern affects the encoding efficiency and visual distortion of the VR content. Accounting for this issue, in this paper, a quality of experience (QoE)-aware cost minimization problem is investigated for a tile-based VR content transmission scenario. In particular, an edge server (ES) co-located at a cellular base station (BS) separates its generated VR content into several tiles according to the tiling pattern selection, and a weighted-to-spherically-uniform quality model is used to evaluate the effect of different tiling patterns on QoE. Moreover, to improve the transmission performance between the edge server and VR users (VRUs), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are leveraged as relay points to provide line of sight channels. Then, we formulate an optimization problem to minimize the sum of weighted total energy consumption and VR content distortion (i.e., QoE-aware cost) by jointly optimizing the tiling pattern selections, the VRUs-UAV grouping, partial computing decisions, and resource allocation. The formulated problem is a mixed integer non-linear programming problem, which is challenging to solve. To address this difficulty, we equivalently decompose the formulated problem into three subproblems and propose corresponding algorithms to solve them, respectively. Numerical results demonstrate that our proposed solution can effectively reduce the QoE-aware cost for VR content transmission in comparison with other baseline algorithms.

Assessing Face Image Quality: A Large-Scale Database and a Transformer Method.

The amount of face images has been witnessing an explosive increase in the last decade, where various distortions inevitably exist on transmitted or stored face images. The distortions lead to visible and undesirable degradation on face images, affecting their quality of experience (QoE). To address this issue, this paper proposes a novel Transformer-based method for quality assessment on face images (named as TransFQA). Specifically, we first establish a large-scale face image quality assessment (FIQA) database, which includes 42,125 face images with diversifying content at different distortion types. Through an extensive crowdsource study, we obtain 712,808 subjective scores, which to the best of our knowledge contribute to the largest database for assessing the quality of face images. Furthermore, by investigating the established database, we comprehensively analyze the impacts of distortion types and facial components (FCs) on the overall image quality. Accordingly, we propose the TransFQA method, in which the FC-guided Transformer network (FT-Net) is developed to integrate the global context, face region and FC detailed features via a new progressive attention mechanism. Then, a distortion-specific prediction network (DP-Net) is designed to weight different distortions and accurately predict final quality scores. Finally, the experiments comprehensively verify that our TransFQA method significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art methods for quality assessment on face images.

Fumos: Neural Compression and Progressive Refinement for Continuous Point Cloud Video Streaming.

Point cloud video (PCV) offers watching experiences in photorealistic 3D scenes with six-degree-of-freedom (6-DoF), enabling a variety of VR and AR applications. The user's Field of View (FoV) is more fickle with 6-DoF movement than 3-DoF movement in 360-degree video. PCV streaming is extremely bandwidth-intensive. However, current streaming systems require hundreds of Mbps bandwidth, exceeding the bandwidth capabilities of commodity devices. To save bandwidth, FoV-adaptive streaming predicts a user's FoV and only downloads point cloud data falling in the predicted FoV. But it is difficult to accurately predict the user's FoV even 2-3 seconds before playback due to 6-DoF. Misprediction of FoV or network bandwidth dips results in frequent stalls. To avoid rebuffering, existing systems would cause incomplete FoV and degraded experience, deteriorating the user's quality of experience (QoE). In this paper, we describe Fumos, a novel system that preserves interactive experience by avoiding playback stalls while maintaining high perceptual quality and high compression rate. We find a research gap in inter-frame redundant utilization and progressive mechaism. Fumos has three crucial designs, including (1) Neural compression framework with inter-frame coding, namely N-PCC, which achieves both bandwidth efficiency and high fidelity. (2) Progressive refinement streaming framework that enables continuous playback by incrementally upgrading a fetched portion to a higher quality (3) System-level adaptation that employs Lyapunov optimization to jointly optimize the long-term user QoE. Experimental results demonstrate that Fumos significantly outperforms Draco, achieving an average decoding rate acceleration of over 260×. Moreover, the proposed compression framework N-PCC attains remarkable BD-Rate gains, averaging 91.7% and 51.7% against the state-of-the-art point cloud compression methods G-PCC and V-PCC, respectively.

Presence and Pronouns: An Exploratory Investigation into the Language of Social VR

As social virtual reality (VR) continues to grow as a medium for digital communication, sustaining presence among communicators remains one of the main constructs that researchers and practitioners use to assess the quality of user experience. In the present paper, we explore language patterns as a behavioral link to presence. We accomplished this through an exploratory text analysis of over 4,800 min of conversation in social VR, consisting of over 130,000 spoken words from 126 participants. We observed that the use of self-references and collective references positively correlated to social presence and spatial presence. Furthermore, median interpersonal distance between communicators was positively associated with using impersonal pronouns, suggesting that participants who stood farther apart from their interlocutors tended to speak in more impersonal terms. Our work sheds light on the possible psychological mechanisms behind presence and the potential of using speech data to help build systems that enhance user engagement.

Assessing the quality of experience in wireless networks for multimedia applications: A comprehensive analysis utilizing deep learning-based techniques

In the context of the burgeoning progression of wireless network technology and the corresponding escalation in the demand for mobile Internet-based multimedia transmission services, the task of preserving and augmenting user satisfaction has emerged as an imperative concern. This necessitates a sophisticated and accurate evaluation of multimedia service quality within the sphere of wireless networks. To systematically address the nuanced issue of user experience quality, the present study introduces a novel method for evaluating multimedia Quality of Experience (QoE) in wireless networks, employing an advanced deep learning model as the underlying analytical framework. Initially, the research undertakes the task of modeling the video session process, giving due consideration to the status of each temporal interval within the session's architecture. Subsequently, the challenge of QoE prediction is dissected and investigated through the lens of recurrent neural networks (RNNs), culminating in the proposition of an all-encompassing QoE prediction model that harmoniously integrates video information, Quality of Service (QoS) data, user behavior analytics, and facial expression analysis. The empirical segment of this research serves to validate the efficacy of the suggested video QoE evaluation method, engaging both quantitative and qualitative comparison metrics with contemporaneous state-of-the-art QoE models, employing the RTVCQoE dataset as the empirical foundation. The experimental findings illuminate that the QoE model elucidated in this study transcends competing models in performance metrics such as PLCC, SRCC, and KRCC. Consequently, this investigation stands as a seminal contribution to academic literature, furnishing an exacting and dependable QoE evaluation methodology. Such a contribution augments the user experience landscape in multimedia services within wireless networks, and instigates further scholarly exploration and technological innovation in the mobile Internet domain.

Task-Offloading Strategy of Mobile Edge Computing for WBANs

In recent years, mobile edge computing has become one of the popular methods to provide computing resources for the body area network, but existing research only considers the problem of minimizing the cost of offloading when solving the optimization problem of task-offloading, ignoring the trust problem of edge computing nodes, and offloading tasks on edge nodes may cause user information disclosure and reduce the quality of user experience. In response to this situation, this study aims to minimize the average user cost and designs a task-offloading strategy based on the D3QN (dueling double deep Q-network) algorithm in conjunction with the blockchain information security storage model. This strategy uses deep reinforcement learning algorithms to obtain the minimum average offloading cost of the system while considering user latency, energy consumption, and data protection conditions. The experimental simulation results show that compared to traditional schemes and other reinforcement learning-based schemes, this scheme can more effectively reduce the average cost of the system, and the average cost is reduced by 31.25% when reaching convergence. In addition, as the complexity of the model increases, this scheme can provide users with better experience quality, with 53.7% of the 1000 users having a very good experience quality.

An empirical assessment of the use of an algorithm factory for video delivery operations.

Video service providers are moving from focusing on Quality of Service (QoS) to Quality of Experience (QoE) in their video networks since the users' demand for high-quality video content is continually growing. By focusing on QoE, video service providers can provide their subscribers with a more personalized and engaging experience, which can help increase viewer satisfaction and retention. This focus shift requires not only a more sophisticated approach to network management and new tools and technologies to measure and optimize QoE in their networks but also a novel approach to video delivery operations. This paper describes the components, interactions, and relationships of an algorithm factory for video delivery operation that assures high QoE for video streaming services. The paper also showcases the results of gradually implementing an algorithm factory in the video industry. Using a dataset from 2016 to 2022, we present the case of a European PayTV service provider that achieved improved performance measured by both objective and subjective metrics. The use of an algorithm factory significantly improved the PayTV service provider's performance. The study found a fivefold increase in the speed of critical incident resolution and a 59% reduction in the number of critical incidents, all while expanding the customer base and maintaining the same level of labor resources. The case also demonstrates a strong positive relation between the productivity measures of the PayTV operator and their survey-based quality ratings. These results underscore the importance of flawless QoS and operational excellence in delivering QoE to meet the evolving demands of viewers. The paper adds to the existing literature on relationships between operational efficiency, innovation, and subjective quality. The paper further offers empirical evidence from the PayTV industry. The insights provided are expected to benefit both traditional and over-the-top (OTT) video service providers in their quest to stay ahead in the rapidly evolving video industry. It may also translate to other service providers in similar industries committed to supporting high-quality service delivery.

An Improved Intelligent Machine Learning Approach to Music Recommendation Based on Big Data Techniques and DSO Algorithms

INTRODUCTION: In an effort to enhance the quality of user experience in using music services and improve the efficiency of music recommendation platforms, researching accurate and efficient music recommendation methods and constructing an accurate real-time online recommendation platform are the key points for the success of a high-quality music website platform.OBJECTIVES: To address the problems of incomplete signal feature capture, insufficient classification efficiency and poor generalization of current music recommendation methods.METHODS: Improve the deep confidence network to construct music recommendation algorithm by using big data and intelligent optimization algorithm. Firstly, music features are extracted by analyzing the principle of music recommendation algorithm, and evaluation indexes of music recommendation algorithm are proposed at the same time; then, combined with the deep sleep optimization algorithm, a music recommendation method based on improved deep confidence network is proposed; finally, the efficiency of the proposed method is verified through the analysis of simulation experiments.RESULTS: While meeting the real-time requirements, the proposed method improves the music recommendation accuracy, recall, and coverage.CONCLUSION: Solves the questions of incomplete signal feature capture, insufficient classification efficiency, and poor generalization of current music recommendation algorithms.

Advanced interactive digital storytelling in digital heritage applications

Interactive Digital Storytelling (IDS) is a way of communicating information in the metaverse (Barbara and Haahr, 2022). In this paper we introduce the Advanced Interactive Digital Storytelling methodology (A-IDS), as a combination of IDS with gameplay elements. We show that applications created using this methodology offer unique immersive experiences of historical objects and events to museum visitors and online. In this paper, we describe it on a use case of the Trebinje Fortresses VR project. Austrian-Hungarian Fortresses around Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina, are in decay, hardly accessible, and completely neglected. They can be explored in Virtual Reality through an application that combines Interactive Digital Storytelling narrated by officers who used to inhabit them with gameplays where the users become carrier pigeons in the first mission and get a task to accomplish in a fortress underground, in the second. If successful, they get the opportunity to explore digitized museum exhibits found in the fortress. The application is installed in the Trebinje Museum. The quality of user experience will be proven through an evaluation study.

MEDUSA: A Dynamic Codec Switching Approach in HTTP Adaptive Streaming

HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) solutions utilize various Adaptive BitRate (ABR) algorithms to dynamically select appropriate video representations, aiming to adapt to fluctuations in network bandwidth. However, current ABR implementations have a limitation in that they are designed to function with one set of video representations, i.e. , the bitrate ladder, which differ in bitrate and resolution, but are encoded with the same video codec. When multiple codecs are available, current ABR algorithms select one of them prior to the streaming session and stick to it throughout the entire streaming session. Although newer codecs are generally preferred over older ones, their compression efficiencies differ depending on the content’s complexity, which varies over time. Therefore, it is necessary to select the appropriate codec for each video segment to reduce the requested data while delivering the highest possible quality. In this paper, we first provide a practical example where we compare compression efficiencies of different codecs on a set of video sequences. Based on this analysis, we formulate the optimization problem of selecting the appropriate codec for each user and video segment (on a per-segment basis in the outmost case), refining the selection of the ABR algorithms by exploiting key metrics, such as the perceived segment quality and size. Subsequently, to address the scalability issues of this centralized model, we introduce a novel distributed plug-in ABR algorithm for Video on Demand (VoD) applications called MEDUSA to be deployed on top of existing ABR algorithms. MEDUSA enhances the user’s Quality of Experience (QoE) by utilizing a multi-objective function that considers the quality and size of video segments when selecting the next representation. Using quality information and segment size from the modified Media Presentation Description (MPD) , MEDUSA utilizes buffer occupancy to prioritize quality or size by assigning specific weights in the objective function. To show the impact of MEDUSA, we compare the proposed plug-in approach on top of state-of-the-art techniques with their original implementations and analyze the results for different network traces, video content, and buffer capacities. According to the experimental findings, MEDUSA shows the ability to improve QoE for various test videos and scenarios. The results reveal an impressive improvement in the QoE score of up to 42% according to the ITU-T P.1203 model (mode 0). Additionally, MEDUSA can reduce the transmitted data volume by up to more than 40% achieving a QoE similar to the techniques compared, reducing the burden on streaming service providers for delivery costs.

A Moving Metaverse: QoE challenges and standards requirements for immersive media consumption in autonomous vehicles

The evolution of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs) has blurred the distinction between drivers and passengers, resulting in increased demand for in-car entertainment. Simultaneously, social networking platforms are evolving to adopt AR (Augmented Reality)/VR (Virtual Reality)-centric metaverses. Self-driving cars will free up the drivers and passengers to engage in leisure activities such as watching VR videos and playing games while travelling. Before driverless cars can become a “third living space”, open challenges confront the provision of immersive content (e.g., VR videos and gaming) with a high level of Quality of Experience (QoE). Current autonomous vehicular network technologies focus on navigation and safety and rely on ubiquitous high-speed 5G/6G network connectivity to provide a seamless streaming experience in AVs. The compounded risks of cyber- and motion-sickness are identified as barriers to the enjoyment of in-car VR entertainment technologies. The influence of AV car networks in different traffic conditions is identified as a key factor to minimize a person’s risk of sickness and increase overall QoE. However, assessing the QoE of immersive media consumption in AV to its full potential is a difficult task that requires proper standard guidelines and directions. Existing surveys focus only on a specific metaverse or transportation system. These surveys lack a comprehensive view of the entire immersive media consumption process, QoE factors and aspects, and QoE standards for assessing immersive content in vehicular networks. To address these issues, we present an overview of the research landscape in the context of QoE and network standards that highlights the need for experimental studies to inform and consolidate the methodologies and recommendations for standardization of immersive content QoE assessment in AVs. Research and user studies have not yet yielded standards or recommendations describing assessment methodologies to evaluate immersive systems, such as exist for traditional video and images. A framework is outlined to provide a comprehensive understanding of the QoE influencing factors and aspects that will assist in adapting, augmenting, and producing standards for immersive entertainment in autonomous vehicles.

“Web Services Performance Prediction with Confusion Matrix and K-Fold Cross Validation to Provide Prior Service Quality Characteristics”

The Information Technology sector has experienced substantial growth, especially in the realm of application development, over the last few decades. This ongoing evolution highlights the complexity of contemporary IT applications, which no longer rely on a singular component. Developers now integrate a multitude of components from diverse sources, including users and vendors. Thoroughly examining the quality of external software components before integration into an application is imperative for ensuring optimal service performance. Numerous methodologies and approaches are available for appraising the quality of software components, including the Software as a Service Model (SaaS), Quality of Experience (QoE), and alternative models for identifying quality. These models employ traditional techniques to assess factors like availability, integrity, accessibility, security, performance, and reliability, collectively contributing to the measurement of Quality of Service (QoS). The suggested method enables thorough scrutiny of software components through a 360-degree evaluation, utilizing the Confusion Matrix for predicting performance. This evaluation method ranks web services based on throughput and response time, providing tangible values for decision-making by service users. The classification mechanism aids in categorizing standards within a benchmark web service dataset. By utilizing this performance measuring method, one can determine service quality through the confusion matrix, aiding in the identification of the best web services and contributing to the optimization of application performance.

QoE‐driven multi‐UAV deployment scheme for emergency communication networks

AbstractWhen ground communication infrastructure within a region cannot be used for some reason, deploying unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)‐mounted base stations is undoubtedly the most effective way to provide communication services. This paper investigates the problem of joint deployment and power allocation of multiple UAVs, where ground terminals (GTs) seek to maximize quality of experience (QoE). In the mixed line‐of‐sight and non‐line‐of‐sight environment, UAVs need to change position in order to collect channel information until deployment problem is solved. Moreover, only neighboring UAVs communicate with each other, which makes the problem more difficult to solve. In order to solve this problem, game theory is used to model this problem and design a distributed learning algorithm to maximize the QoE of all GTs in the entire system. Simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed learning algorithm in improving the QoE fairness and achieving the rapid deployment of UAVs.

Adaptive Video Streaming in Multi-Tier Computing Networks: Joint Edge Transcoding and Client Enhancement

With the advancement of multimedia technology and wireless networks, there is a growing demand for high-quality video streaming. Delivering stable video streaming in extremely dynamic wireless networks, nevertheless, is still an open problem. Recent developments in client computing and mobile edge computing (MEC) technologies have both shown promise in enhancing the adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming services. In this paper, we consider a video streaming system in multi-tier computing networks, enabled by joint edge-side video transcoding and client-side video enhancement. By “enhancement,” we mean that the client improves the video chunk quality via client-side image processing modules. In particular, we aim to design a joint bitrate adaptation, edge transcoding, and client image-processing algorithm, maximizing the quality of experience (QoE) of streaming services. The majority of the prior art has concentrated on super-resolution-enabled video streaming. Contrarily, we show that the video enhancement method outperforms the super-resolution approach in terms of signal-to-noise ratio and frames per second, implying a superior alternative for client-side processing in ABR streaming. We formulate the problem as an event-triggered Markov decision process (E-MDP), and propose a deep reinforcement learning (DRL)-based framework, named EDTEA. To deal with the delayed feedback induced by multi-tier computing, the entropy and the expected re-buffering terms are introduced to the objective and the reward, respectively. Extensive simulations based on real-world videos and bandwidth traces manifest that compared with state-of-the-art approaches, EDTEA provides <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$10.4\%\sim 78.4\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> extra QoE while reducing re-buffering time by <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$85.5\%\sim 91.7\%$</tex-math></inline-formula> .

NERVE: Real-Time Neural Video Recovery and Enhancement on Mobile Devices

As mobile devices become increasingly popular for video streaming, it is crucial to optimize the streaming experience for these devices. Although deep learning-based video enhancement techniques are gaining attention, most of them cannot support real-time enhancement on mobile devices. Additionally, many of these techniques are focused solely on super-resolution and cannot handle partial or complete loss or corruption of video frames, which is common in the Internet and wireless networks. To overcome these challenges, we present NERVE, a novel approach in this paper. NERVE consists of (i) a novel video frame recovery scheme, (ii) a new super-resolution algorithm, and (iii) an enhancement-aware video bit rate adaptation algorithm. We implement NERVE on an iPhone 12, and it can support 30 frames per second (FPS). We evaluate NERVE in various networks such as 3G, 4G, 5G, and WiFi networks. Our evaluation shows that NERVE enables real-time video recovery and enhancement, and results in 24% - 83% increase in video Quality of Experience (QoE) in our video streaming system.

Multisite gaming streaming optimization over virtualized 5G environment using Deep Reinforcement Learning techniques

The massive growth of live streaming, especially gaming-focused content, has led to an overall increase in global bandwidth consumption. Certain services see their quality diminished at times of peak consumption, degrading the quality of the content. This trend generates new research related to optimizing image quality according to network and service conditions. In this work we present a gaming streaming use case optimization on a real multisite 5G environment. The paper outlines the virtualized workflow of the use case and provides a detailed description of the applications and resources deployed for the simulation. This simulation tests the optimization of the service based on the addition of Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms, assuring the delivery of content with good Quality of Experience (QoE) under different working conditions. The AI introduced is based on Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) algorithms that can adapt, in a flexible way, to the different conditions that the multimedia workflow could face. That is, adapt, through corrective actions, the streaming bitrate, in order to optimize the QoE of the content on a real-time multisite scenario. The results of this work demonstrate how we have been able to minimize content losses, as well as the fact of obtaining high audiovisual multimedia quality results with higher bitrates, compared to a service without an optimizer integrated in the system. In a multi-site environment, we have achieved an improvement of 20 percentage points in terms of blockiness efficiency and also 15 percentage points in block loss.

Splitting the backbone: A novel hierarchical method for assessing light field image quality

The rising popularity of light field imaging underscores the pivotal role of image quality in user experience. However, evaluating the quality of light field images presents significant challenges owing to their high-dimensional nature. Current quality assessment methods for light field images predominantly rely on machine learning or statistical analysis, often overlooking the interdependence among pixels. To overcome this limitation, we propose an innovative approach that employs a universal backbone network and introduces a dual-task framework for feature extraction. Specifically, we integrate a staged “primary-secondary” hierarchical evaluation mode into the universal backbone networks, enabling accurate quality score inference while preserving the intrinsic information of the original image. Our proposed approach reduces inference time by over 75% compared to existing methods, simultaneously achieving state-of-the-art results in terms of evaluation metrics. By harnessing the efficiency of neural networks, our framework offers an effective solution for the quality assessment of light field images, providing superior accuracy and speed compared to current methodologies.

Enhancing user experience in home networks with machine learning-based classification

With the rapid development of mobile Internet, home broadband has been integrated into people's daily lives, and the market has become increasingly saturated. User experience and broadband quality have become the key factors determining market competitiveness, and consequently, most operators currently are increasing attention to network quality issues and how to improve user experience. This paper proposes an efficient machine learning model to accurately evaluate home user network experiences. The dataset used encompasses network indicator data from 500 anonymized users, and presents a set of formidable challenges including a non-standard sampling rate and time range, an uneven distribution of observations, multiple recorded observations for identical timestamps, a constrained sample size, a subjective definition of Internet experience, and a lack of essential information regarding the data collection setup. Our novel time series characteristic-based method extracts thousands of descriptive statistics from the time series sequences which reveal that, even in the face of the dataset's inherent complexities, our proposed method excels, achieving an impressive 67% validation accuracy. This represents a substantial 3% enhancement over the performance of conventional models on this dataset. Furthermore, we explore the potential of a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) model, which also yields promising results with a validation accuracy of 58%. It is important to underscore that the performance of the RNN model could be substantially enhanced with a larger dataset. [...]

PixRevive: Latent Feature Diffusion Model for Compressed Video Quality Enhancement.

In recent years, the rapid prevalence of high-definition video in Internet of Things (IoT) systems has been directly facilitated by advances in imaging sensor technology. To adapt to limited uplink bandwidth, most media platforms opt to compress videos to bitrate streams for transmission. However, this compression often leads to significant texture loss and artifacts, which severely degrade the Quality of Experience (QoE). We propose a latent feature diffusion model (LFDM) for compressed video quality enhancement, which comprises a compact edge latent feature prior network (ELPN) and a conditional noise prediction network (CNPN). Specifically, we first pre-train ELPNet to construct a latent feature space that captures rich detail information for representing sharpness latent variables. Second, we incorporate these latent variables into the prediction network to iteratively guide the generation direction, thus resolving the problem that the direct application of diffusion models to temporal prediction disrupts inter-frame dependencies, thereby completing the modeling of temporal correlations. Lastly, we innovatively develop a Grouped Domain Fusion module that effectively addresses the challenges of diffusion distortion caused by naive cross-domain information fusion. Comparative experiments on the MFQEv2 benchmark validate our algorithm's superior performance in terms of both objective and subjective metrics. By integrating with codecs and image sensors, our method can provide higher video quality.

Cloud media video encoding: review and challenges

AbstractIn recent years, Internet traffic patterns have been changing. Most of the traffic demand by end users is multimedia, in particular, video streaming accounts for over 53%. This demand has led to improved network infrastructures and computing architectures to meet the challenges of delivering these multimedia services while maintaining an adequate quality of experience. Focusing on the preparation and adequacy of multimedia content for broadcasting, Cloud and Edge Computing infrastructures have been and will be crucial to offer high and ultra-high definition multimedia content in live, real-time, or video-on-demand scenarios. For these reasons, this review paper presents a detailed study of research papers related to encoding and transcoding techniques in cloud computing environments. It begins by discussing the evolution of streaming and the importance of the encoding process, with a focus on the latest streaming methods and codecs. Then, it examines the role of cloud systems in multimedia environments and provides details on the cloud infrastructure for media scenarios. After doing a systematic literature review, we have been able to find 49 valid papers that meet the requirements specified in the research questions. Each paper has been analyzed and classified according to several criteria, besides to inspect their relevance. To conclude this review, we have identified and elaborated on several challenges and open research issues associated with the development of video codecs optimized for diverse factors within both cloud and edge architectures. Additionally, we have discussed emerging challenges in designing new cloud/edge architectures aimed at more efficient delivery of media traffic. This involves investigating ways to improve the overall performance, reliability, and resource utilization of architectures that support the transmission of multimedia content over both cloud and edge computing environments ensuring a good quality of experience for the final user.