When a video source, which is not limited in the number of copying operations thereof, has been recorded, a reduced image thereof is created and stored in a recording medium. Upon thumbnail image display (upon execution of a thumbnail function), the reduced image is displayed at a high speed. On the other hand, when a video source, only one-generation recording of which is enabled, has been recorded, no reduced image is created (stored) so as to avoid "copy limitation violation". When the only-one-generation-copy-enabled video source mage has been recorded, the thumbnail display function is realized by storing, in the recording medium, a pointer indicative of the position of the original image of a thumbnail image in video data.