A video signal recording apparatus including a switching device for receiving a digital progressive scan TV signal having a frame cycle which is ½ of the frame cycle of an interlaced scan TV signal and switching the progressive scan TV signal frame by frame alternately; a coding device for performing high-rate coding of data corresponding to one frame of the progressive scan TV signal to the same code amount as obtained by high-rate coding of data corresponding to one frame including two successive fields of an interlaced scan standard-definition TV signal; and a recording device for recording the data processed with the high-rate coding in the same number of tracks as the data corresponding to one frame of the interlaced scan standard-definition TV signal.