PURPOSE: To improve picture quality at the time of specific reproducing based on a digital recording VTR by effectively utilizing data which are not convensionally effective at the time of specific reproducing.

CONSTITUTION: Digital data respectively read out by a reproducing head 10 and a specific head 16 are respectively synchronized and supplied to a switch 23. On the other hand, the signal amplitude of the signals read out by the heads 10, 16 and respective synchronizing information are supplied to an effective data detecting circuit 22. At the time of specific reproducing such as a triple- speed reproducing mode, the circuit 22 finds out a switching point of the switch 23 and outputs a control signal to the switch 23. Data selected by the switch 23 are demodulated by a demodulating circuit 24 and header information is extracted by a header extracting circuit 25. Then an error correcting circuit 26 corrects an error and a demodulating circuit 27 demodulates the error- corrected data to a video signal.