A video and audio recorder and a method of operating the same. The recorder includes a TV signal receiving unit, a video/audio compression recording control unit for compressing the video and audio signals and outputting a compressed video/audio multiplex data at the time of recording a program, an accumulation recording unit for recording the compressed video/audio multiplex data in a recording medium, and a recording control unit for controlling the video/audio compression recording control unit thereby to control the program recording operation. The recording control unit, based on the program information of the program to be recorded, controls the program recording operation by setting proportion information between the video recording bit rate and the audio recording bit rate in the compression process of the video and audio signals in the video/audio compression recording control unit.