PURPOSE: To suppress the degradation of picture quality at the time of a superscription and an error when a compressed television signal is recorded and reproduced.

CONSTITUTION: A recording circuit arrays the compressed TV signal inputted from a buffer memory on a tape and records the signal. When the difference from the rate of an inputted signal can not be absorbed in a buffer memory because a recording circuit 3 performs recording at a fixed data rate, dummy data is inserted and recording is performed. At this time, a flag showing the starting location and termination location where dummy data is recorded is generated by a dummy data location information setting circuit. This flag is also recorded with the compressed TV signal and the dummy data on the tape. A reproduction circuit reproduces the signal from the tape and the flag showing the dummy data location is taken out by a flag take-out circuit. When this flag exists, the dummy data is eliminated from the reproduced signal and a compressed TV signal is taken out from the reproduced signal by a compressed TV signal take-out circuit.