Video signal digital magnetic recording reproducing apparatus, with variable length coding data compression

Claim 1

A video signal digital magnetic recording and/or reproducing apparatus comprising: input shuffling means for shuffling input image data having an image data memory means for storing image data corresponding to at least one field image data, wherein said input shuffling means divides said one field image data into a specified number of image blocks which are aligned at original image block positions and selectively reads among the specified number of image blocks which are spaced a predetermined distance from each other and aligns said read image blocks in a predetermined order to define one image block group; coding means for coding said image blocks such that the coded image blocks in each image block group has a total data amount equal to or less than a predetermined data length thereby to effect a variable length coding in each image block; data length adjusting means for adjusting data length of each image block to form sync block data by cutting a coded image block which has a data length longer than a predetermined sync block data length so as to be equal to one sync block data length and filling the cut data portion to be added to a coded image block which has a data length shorter than one sync block data length; and recording deshuffling means having a coded image data memory means for storing said coded image blocks from said data length adjusting means at positions corresponding to said original image block positions, said coded image data aligned corresponding to said original image block positions being divided into a plurality of frame portions in a first direction, each frame portion having a data width corresponding to one or more image blocks, wherein said recording deshuffling means sequentially reads the frame portions of said coded image data thereby to deshuffle the sync block data.