PURPOSE: To discriminate the system and the tape speed with high accuracy by discriminating the system based on a frequency of a horizontal synchronizing signal and discriminating the tape speed based on a frequency of a control signal.

CONSTITUTION: A system controller 31 discriminates the system of a video signal recorded on a magnetic tape 1 based on a frequency of a horizontal synchronizing signal HD separated from a reproduced video signal to control the tape drive system and the reproduction signal processing system in compliance with the discriminated system. Moreover, a tape speed controller discriminates the video signal recorded on the tape 1 at which tape speed the video signal is recorded based on the frequency of the coefficient reproduced from the tape 1 and controls the tape drive system so that the tape speed is coincident with the discriminated tape speed.