To reduce unnaturalness of screen transitions at the start of skip reproduction in the case of sequentially reading and reproducing image data written at a fixed data rate on a recording medium.

A memory 12 temporarily stores data sequentially read from a magnetic tape 2, a memory read section 13 sequentially reads the data stored in the memory 12, and gives the data to a video decoder 18 and an audio decoder 19. Further, in an ordinary reproduction, an I picture detection section 22 detects an I picture from the data read from the memory 12 to acquire a read address of head data in the memory 12 and stores the address to a picture address storage section 23. When the skip reproduction mode is selected, a read address control section 14 acquires the newest address stored in a picture address storage section 23 to designate a memory read section 13 to shift the read address on the memory 12.