It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording apparatus and a reproducing apparatus which change a picture compression rate depending upon a picture quality of a source which a user desires to retain, thereby a tape storage space being secured. A video-data compression rate N used by a 1:N video-data compression encoder 3 and a 1:N video-data compression decoder 6 is changed depending upon a picture quality set by a device 5 for setting a picture quality that a user desires. A tape travel speed of an archive VTR 4 is changed in response to the picture compression rate. Thus, an amount of a tape travel is optionally set depending upon a level of the picture quality. Therefore, it is possible to optionally select a tape storage space in response to the level of the picture quality.