Video tape recorder including vertical recording heads

Claim 1

A rotary head type video tape recorder, which comprises: a rotary cylinder arranged for slidable contact, at a portion of the peripheral wall of said cylinder, with a video tape having a recording magnetic layer defining a magnetic plane; and at least one vertical magnetization recording head mounted on said rotary cylinder in the vicinity of said peripheral wall; wherein said vertical magnetization recording head includes a portion which comprises a main magnetic pole and an auxiliary magnetic pole each disposed to face the magnetic plane of said video tape, so that at least part of the recording magnetic flux passing between said main magnetic pole and said auxiliary magnetic pole passes through the recording magnetic layer of the video tape substantially perpendicularly; wherein the peripheral wall of the rotary cylinder is provided with at least one playback head the location of which is displaced a given angle from the location of said vertical magnetization recording head with respect to the rotational center of said rotary cylinder; and wherein the playback head includes a first magnetic circuit member having a first vertical end surface and a second magnetic circuit member a part of which is superposed on a part of said first magnetic circuit member and having a second vertical end surface parallel to and facing in the direction of said first end surface, wherein said end surfaces are offset from one another and the distance between the planes of said end surfaces defines a transducing gap at a position facing the magnetic plane of the video tape so that magnetic flux released from said tape is absorbed by one of said end surfaces to be conducted by both said magnetic circuit members and returned to the tape from the other one of said end surfaces, and a ring-shaped magnetic circuit formed in part by said first and said second magnetic circuit members; means to convert between magnetism and electricity in winding coupling relation with said ring-shaped magnetic circuit; and control means for activating said vertical magnetization head to record on said video tape the shorter wavelength component of a signal to be recorded, for activating said playback head to record on said video tape the longer wavelength component of said signal to be recorded, and for activating said playback head to play back from said video tape both said shorter and longer wavelength components of said signal.