A tape cassette for a helical scan type recording and reproducing apparatus comprising upper and lower cylindrical members capable of engaging with each other and adapted to accept a magnetic head therein, and movable poles connected with the upper cylindrical members and capable of stretching a tape outward to prevent contact with various parts of the recording and reproducing apparatus in loading and retrieving the tape cassette. The upper cylindrical member has a helical projection to engage with a helical groove formed in a support member so that it moves also vertically with the rotation thereof so as to expose the magnetic head and take up the tape.
In a cassette casing having a supply reel, a take-up reel and a hollow cylindrical member, a magnetic tape is fed from the supply reel and, after having been spirally wound around the intermediate hollow cylindrical member, is wound on the take-up reel. To this end, the hollow cylindrical member is formed with a spiral guide rib with a pitch substantially equal to the width of the magnetic tape and threadedly or screwwisely received in an opening formed in the bottom plate of the cassette casing. When the cassette casing is placed in the position in which it is ready for operation within a video recording and reproducing apparatus, a rotatable magnetic head drum having a magnetic head is inserted into the cylindrical member. Thereafter, the cylindrical member is moved outwardly from the cassette casing by rotating it through a driving apparatus, whereby the magnetic tape wound around the cylindrical member is progressively transferred onto the head drum to the position for recording or reproducing. When the cassette casing is to be removed from the apparatus, the hollow cylindrical member is rotated in the reverse direction to be inserted into the casette casing by virtue of the threaded engagement with the opening formed in the bottom plate of the cassette casing. Then, the magnetic tape is transferred back to the cylindrical member from the magnetic head-drum.
A cartridge can be loaded and unloaded in a video camera body (11). A cartridge case (11) of the cartridge has therein a recording/reproduction mechanism unit including a pair of reel bases, tape reels supported by the reel bases, respectively and a rotating head drum (17) around which a magnetic tape (17) is wound for achieving recording and reproduction actions. The cartridge case (30) is provided with an I/O terminal substrate (30) to be electrically connected to the video camera body. The magnetic tape extracted from the tape reel is wound around the rotating head drum, and as a result they are integrated with one another.
