Video signal reproducing apparatus using pilot signal system

Claim 1

A video signal reproducing apparatus for reproducing by a helical scanning system, a video signal from a magnetic recording medium where said video signal and at least four kinds of pilot signals selected for each field for tracking control are recorded in an overlapping manner, comprising: at least two reproducing heads mounted on a rotating member, said reproducing heads being enabled alternately by a head selection signal provided in response to the rotation of said rotating member; head displacing means coupled to said reproducing heads for displacing the positions of said reproducing heads on the surface of said rotating member in the direction of the rotating axis of said rotating member; reproduced pilot signal providing means coupled to said reproducing heads for extracting pilot signals from the signals reproduced by said reproducing heads; reference signal providing means capable of providing successively at least four kinds of reference signals having different frequencies in response to said head selection signal, the frequencies of said four kinds of reference signals being selected to be equal to the frequencies of said four kinds of pilot signals, respectively; error signal providing means coupled to said reproduced pilot signal providing means and said reference signal providing means for providing an error signal for controlling the tracing positions of said reproducing heads with respect to said recording medium based on the outputs of said reproduced pilot signal providing means and said reference signal providing means; detection period signal providing means for providing a detection period signal at the time of starting still reproduction; head position control forbidding means coupled to said head displacing means and said detection period signal providing means for forbidding the control of said head displacing means in response to said detection period signal; level detection signal providing means coupled to said error signal providing means and said detection period signal providing means for observing said error signal changing during the application of said detection period signal and for providing a level detection signal when said error signal attains the optimum prescribed level for tracing control; and reference signal control means coupled to said level detection signal providing means and said reference signal providing means for controlling said reference signal providing means in response to said level detection signal so as to provide references signals suited for the scanned tracks at the time of still reproduction.