Data placement on tape for a digital video tape recorder suitable for high speed picture playback

An image carrier including a plurality of equal-length parallel slant tracks recorded therein, each track comprising a plurality of successively recorded sync blocks disposed in respective ones of each of a plurality of sub-intervals along the length of said track, wherein:

• each said sync block is divided into at least first and second parts having first and second digital signals respectively coded therein, the first digital signal being used for reconstructing low-resolution video signal first frames corresponding to input images during a trickplay mode and the second digital signal being used for reconstructing high-resolution video signal second frames corresponding to said input images during a normal play mode, said first and second frames each containing a first number of scan lines, said first digital signal in each of its samples corresponding to some portion of each of a second number of scan lines within one of said first frames;
• and
• the first digital signal for a plurality of said sync blocks successively recorded along one of said tracks corresponds to said second number of said scan lines within said first frames, the plurality including only a number of sync blocks equal to said second number, wherein said second number is much smaller than said first number.