PURPOSE: To enable a user to confirm the residual capacity of a tape by voice synthesis at the time of using a telephone set in his destination to register the reservation of a television program and to enable him to confirm whether recording is possible or not by voice synthesis by calculating time relations among already registered television programs in the case that plural television programs are already registered.

CONSTITUTION: When a tape residual capacity display button 19 is depressed, a video tape recorder VTR is set to the tape residual capacity display mode. When the user uses a telephone set 1 in his destination to call this VTR, a telephone line 2 is closed by an operated relay Y-1. Then, a response message from a voice synthesizing part 5 is sent. The password number sent by the telephone 1 is decoded by a tone decoder 7; and when it coincides with a registered value, the tape residual capacity is read from a memory RAM-3 and is sent as a voice through the voice synthesizing part 5. If plural reservations are already registered in a memory RAM, time relations among them are checked by a program to send information indicating whether recording is actually possible or not by voice synthesis.