A digital data reproducing apparatus and method which allows reproduction for a long period of time without deterioration in picture quality. Data are reproduced from an optical disk by a pickup and are transferred to and stored in a ring buffer memory. Data read from the ring buffer memory are transferred to and stored into a video code buffer of an encoder section. The data stored in the video code buffer are encoded in the encoder section and displayed on a display. A track jump judging circuit produces a track jumping instruction to cause the pickup to track jump back to a preceding track when the amount of data stored in the ring buffer memory reaches a predetermined value.