Patent ID: 7088907

Claim:
A video recording apparatus comprising: composite video image generating means for generating reduced signal video images, each comprising less than a complete screen by reducing the number of pixels to be displayed of each of a plurality of video images supplied from frames of each of a plurality of input data streams, a frame from only one of each of said plurality of input data streams being supplied at a time, and generating a composite video image by compositing the generated reduced video images in a substantially non-overlapping manner; additional information generating means for generating additional information for each of the supplied video images; dividing means for dividing a memory of said recording apparatus into a plurality of blocks, each of said plurality of blocks having a reduced video image, said reduced video image of each block being a composite of images from each of said plurality of input streams; video recording means for recording the composite video image and the additional information onto a predetermined recording medium in such a manner of maintaining the correspondence between each of the reduced video images included in the composite video image and each additional information; and recording mode switching means for switching the recording from recording the composite video image to a full recording mode for recording one of said video images when a predetermined condition for said one of said video images is met; wherein the predetermined recording medium is a tape medium for recording the composite video image in a series of tracks; wherein each track has a video auxiliary area for recording the additional information; and wherein the additional information recorded in the video auxiliary area comprises frame division configuration information indicative of an arrangement and a maximum number of reduced video images in the composite video image, recording apparatus identification information for identifying a video recording apparatus used for recording each of the reduced video images, and contents information regarding a contents of each of the reduced video images included in the composite video image.