---
title: "Quality atom ('rmqu')"
framework: quicktime-file-format
role: symbol
role_heading: Atom
path: quicktime-file-format/quality_atom
---

# Quality atom ('rmqu')

A quality atom describes the relative quality of a movie.

## Overview

Overview This acts as a tiebreaker if more than one movie meets the specified requirements, and it is not otherwise obvious which movie should be played. This would be the case if two qualified movies have the same data rate and CPU speed requirements, for example, or if one movie requires a higher data rate and another requires a higher CPU speed, but both can be played on the current system. In these cases, applications play the movie with the highest quality, as specified in the quality atom. Only one quality atom is allowed in a given reference movie descriptor atom.

## Topics

### Data fields

- [Size](quicktime-file-format/quality_atom/size.md)
- [Type](quicktime-file-format/quality_atom/type.md)
- [Quality](quicktime-file-format/quality_atom/quality.md)

## See Also

### Describing reference movies

- [Reference movie atom ('rmra')](quicktime-file-format/reference_movie_atom.md)
- [Reference movie descriptor atom ('rmda')](quicktime-file-format/reference_movie_descriptor_atom.md)
- [Data reference atom](quicktime-file-format/reference_movie_data_reference_atom.md)
- [Data rate atom ('rmdr')](quicktime-file-format/data_rate_atom.md)
- [CPU speed atom ('rmcs')](quicktime-file-format/cpu_speed_atom.md)
- [Version check atom ('rmvc')](quicktime-file-format/version_check_atom.md)
- [Component detect atom ('rmcd')](quicktime-file-format/component_detect_atom.md)
- [Movie importer component flags](quicktime-file-format/movie_importer_component_flags.md)