Video data is successively received from a surveillance camera system. The video image is recorded and thinned in accordance with passage of time of each of the recorded video image. Thinning is effected by thinning frames of the recorded video image for each recording unit, wherein the thinned frames are further thinned at the later of the recording unit. More specifically, a switching circuit recurrently distributes the video image of each recording unit to each of a plurality of recording areas each the recording unit for recording. The video image in one of a plurality of the recording areas is thinned while one of a plurality of the recording areas is not used for recording the video image. The thinned video image is recorded with time relation with the video image recorded while one of a plurality of the recording areas is used for recording the video image. The video image and thinned video image in each of recording areas are composed (connected) with each other in accordance with passage of time of the video image and thinned video image to reproduce a stream of time passage video image. Moreover, time data is generated and attached to each frame of the video image to be recorded with the video image.