To make it possible to efficiently transmit data only when they are merely display on a reception side and to lower the price by making it possible to use various kind of equipment as a receiving device.

A preprocessing circuit 125 and an encoding circuit 126 as a 1st system of a transmitting device encode an image pickup signal into such a form that the signal can be stored in a reception-side memory. A preprocessing circuit 127 and an encoding circuit 131 as a 2nd system encode the image pickup signal into a form matching a reception-side display means. The receiving device has a decoding circuit 223 corresponding to the preprocessing circuit 125 and encoding circuit 126 and its output is converted by a postprocessing circuit 224 into a signal which can be displayed by a monitor 229. Further, the device has a decoding circuit 227 corresponding to the preprocessing circuit 127 and encoding circuit 131 and its output can be displayed by the monitor 229. The encoding and decoding outputs of one system can be selected by a switching means and used.