---
title: "Movie header atom ('mvhd')"
framework: quicktime-file-format
role: symbol
role_heading: Atom
path: quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom
---

# Movie header atom ('mvhd')

An atom that specifies the characteristics of an entire QuickTime movie.

## Overview

Overview You use the movie header atom to specify the characteristics of an entire QuickTime movie. The data contained in this atom defines characteristics of the entire QuickTime movie, such as time scale and duration. It has an atom type value of 'mvhd'. The following table shows the layout of the movie header atom. The movie header atom is a leaf atom.  |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |   |  note: Set the creation and modification date with coordinated universal time (UTC). In prior versions of the QuickTime file format, this was not specified, and these fields were commonly set to local time for the time zone where the movie was created.

## Topics

### Data fields

- [Size](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/size.md)
- [Type](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/type.md)
- [Version](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/version.md)
- [Flags](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/flags.md)
- [Creation time](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/creation_time.md)
- [Modification time](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/modification_time.md)
- [Time scale](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/time_scale.md)
- [Duration](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/duration.md)
- [Preferred rate](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/preferred_rate.md)
- [Preferred volume](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/preferred_volume.md)
- [Reserved](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/reserved.md)
- [Matrix structure](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/matrix_structure.md)
- [Preview time](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/preview_time.md)
- [Preview duration](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/preview_duration.md)
- [Poster time](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/poster_time.md)
- [Selection time](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/selection_time.md)
- [Selection duration](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/selection_duration.md)
- [Current time](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/current_time.md)
- [Next track ID](quicktime-file-format/movie_header_atom/next_track_id.md)

## See Also

### Describing movies

- [Movie atom ('moov')](quicktime-file-format/movie_atom.md)
- [Color table atom ('ctab')](quicktime-file-format/color_table_atom.md)
- [User data atoms](quicktime-file-format/user_data_atoms.md)
- [Interleaving movie data](quicktime-file-format/interleaving_movie_data.md)