Avoidance of disturbance of horizontal sync signals in video signal

Abstract

In a recording and reproducing apparatus in which a video signal is recorded by at least one rotary head in successive parallel tracks on a recording medium while the latter is being driven at a predetermined or standard speed in a direction to which said tracks are skewed, and in which the recorded video signal is reproduced by the rotary head repeatedly scanning the recording medium while the latter is selectively driven at the standard speed, as in the normal reproducing mode, or at an arbitrary speed other than such standard speed, for example, at zero speed for the still-motion reproducing mode, or at speeds less than and greater than the standard speed for the slow-motion and quick-motion reproducing modes, respectively; a variable delay circuit is operative during reproducing with the recording medium being driven at an arbitrary speed other than standard speed for variably delaying the video signal reproduced by said rotary head, and a control circuit controls the amounts by which the variable delay circuit delays the reproduced video signal in accordance with the arbitrary speed to cause fields of the reproduced video signal which are contiguous or next adjacent in point of time to be continuous in the delayed video signal and to contain respective horizontal synchronizing signals which are in predetermined phase relationships to each other, that is, precisely in phase or out of phase by one-half horizontal period, as when even- and odd-numbered fields are to be interlaced.