Video signal reproducing apparatus with circuit avoiding skew distortion

Abstract

In an apparatus for reproducing video signals recorded in successive, obliquely extending parallel tracks on a record tape with the horizontal synchronizing pulses of video signals recorded in nearby tracks being offset from each other by a predetermined distance in the direction along the tracks, and wherein at least one reproducing head is repeatedly moved across the tape in a scanning path which conforms to the direction along the tracks for reproducing from only one of the tracks at a time when the tape is driven or transported at a standard or normal reproducing speed, but which is at an angle to the direction along the tracks to cause the head to reproduce from one of the tracks and then from another of the nearby tracks when the tape is driven at a different reproducing speed; a delay circuit is provided for delaying the reproduced video signals by an amount corresponding to the offset distance between the horizontal synchronizing pulses recorded in nearby tracks, and, when operating with such different reproducing speed, a switching circuit alternately provides, as the output of the reproducing apparatus, the video signals as reproduced by the head and the delayed reproduced video signals, respectively, with the state of the switching circuit being changed-over each time the reproducing head, in moving along the scanning path, moves from one to the other of the nearby tracks.