Patent US 5,148,331

A rotary head type recording and reproducing apparatus of the kind recording information codes on a tape-shaped recording medium by forming many parallel recording tracks and at the same time an additional code consisting of one byte at a predetermined position in each of the recording tracks and reproducing, by means of rotary heads, the signals from the medium, the apparatus is arranged to perform the reproduction as follows; A tracking error signal is formed by using signals reproduced from the rotary head. The tracking error signal is sampled at such a timing that enables the rotary head to reproduce the additional code. The position of the recording medium relative to the rotary head is controlled on the basis of the tracking error signal thus obtained.