A signal reproduced from an ADV head, which is advanced a recording head is error corrected in the ECC decoder. The compression encoding process is decompressed in the compression decoder. The output signal of the ECC decoder is input to the selector. A reproduction signal of the CNF head reproducing a recording data just after recording is supplied to a selector through a ECC decoder and a compression decoder. A bypass signal from the ECC encoder of the recording side is supplied to the the ECC decoder as it's another input. In the ECC decoder, two types of data are written to two different areas of the memory. One of the data is read out selectively and supplied to the selector. The selector is switched from the output of the ADV head to the bypass signal at an in-point. The preview operation can be attained by the picture that has been compressed and decompressed.