In a video signal recording and reproducing system, the recording system comprises a first converting circuit for sampling an analog composite video signal which is to be recorded with a first sampling frequency to convert the analog composite video signal into a digital signal, and a first memory circuit for storing an output digital signal of the first converting circuit to read out the output digital signal as a digital video signal sampled with a second sampling frequency, where the digital video signal corresponds only to a video signal in a video signal period excluding a synchronizing signal period of the analog composite video signal. The digital video signal thus read out is recorded and reproduced. The reproducing system comprises a second memory circuit for storing the reproduced digital video signal, and reading out the digital video signal as a digital video signal sampled with the first sampling frequency for every period corresponding to the video signal period, a third converting circuit for converting the digital video signal read out from the second memory circuit into an analog video signal, a synchronizing signal generating circuit for generating a synchronizing signal in synchronism with a signal having a frequency equal to the first sampling frequency, and a reproduced analog composite video signal obtaining circuit for mixing the analog video signal obtained through the conversion at the third converting circuit and the synchronizing signal generated by the synchronizing signal generating circuit, to obtain a reproduced analog composite video signal.