PURPOSE: To make it possible to separate the luminance signal and the chroma signal accurately, by obtaining a delay time according to the reproducing speed.

CONSTITUTION: The horizontal synchronizing pulse is separated from the reproducing video signal by horizontal synchronizing separating circuit 20 and is supplied to frequency discriminator 21 and has frequency fluctuation detected with the horizontal synchronizing frequency as the center frequency, and the discrimination output corresponding to frequency fluctuation is supplied to VCO22. Now, when the VTR is switched to the first reproducing mode, the frequency of horizontal synchronizing pulses separated from the reproducing video signal is changed also according to mode switching, and the delay time of delay element 3 is changed according to the tape speed.