Patent ID: 7092192

Claim:
A video tape recording/reproducing device for recording video data on a video tape and reproducing the video data recorded on the video tape, comprising: driving means for driving the video tape at a predetermined running speed; a rotatable drum having a plurality of magnetic heads for executing reproduction and recording of the video data from/to the video tape; a buffer memory for temporarily holding the video data to be reproduced by said heads or the video data to be recorded, counting a rate of change of a current data quantity stored in the buffer memory to an entire memory capacity, and supplying the rate of change to a driving control means; an interface for asynchronously transmitting the video data between an external equipment and said buffer memory; and driving control means for controlling the running speed of said video tape by said driving means in accordance with the current data quantity stored in said buffer memory and the rate of change of the current data quantity stored in the buffer memory to the entire memory capacity, both supplied from the buffer memory, wherein a range of the running speed is a function of a fixed number of the plurality of heads; whereby the video data is recorded on the video tape in the form of multiple tracks; whereby the magnetic heads are arranged in pairs, the heads in each pair are spaced apart by about one track width, and the heads in each pair have about the same azimuth angle; whereby said device is operable to perform a variable speed reproduction in which all of the video data recorded on the video tape is reproduced by changing the tape running speed without changing the drum rotation speed; and whereby the video tape is housed within a cassette that includes a non-contact type buffer memory for storing a list of contents of the video tape, the non-contact type buffer memory including a drive circuit for controlling said memory, being read when data is reproduced from the tape and being written when data is recorded to the tape.