A serial data stream representing an image is divided into a plurality of data streams, which are selectively combined to form collected data streams that are respectively blocked, shuffled, orthogonally transformed, variable length encoded, and buffered to form encoded blocks restricted to a predetermined amount of data. The encoded blocks for each of the collected data streams are selectively combined to form channels of record data which are recorded by respective recording heads on tracks of a recording medium using a track shuffling process.