PURPOSE: To improve color quality without exerting adverse effect on recording signals so much.

CONSTITUTION: Luminance signals e1 from a white and dark clip circuit 14 are led to a characteristic switching circuit 42 as contour extraction signals r1 indicating the contour part of the luminance signals e1 by being passed through an electrolytic capacitor C1 and a contour extraction circuit 41. An equalizer 24 cuts the high frequency side end of low-band conversion chrominance signals 11 by characteristics set by the characteristic switching circuit 42 and supplies them to a mixing amplifier 30 as the low-band conversion chrominance signals j1. Thus, in the contour part of the luminance signals e1, since the band on the high frequency side of the low-band conversion chrominance signals j1 is extended and color resolution is improved, the color quality is improved without exerting the adverse influence on the recording signals so much.