The invention relates to a magnetic tape recording apparatus which can record digital image data sufficient to allow a good image to be displayed upon variable speed reproduction in the long time mode. It is determined whether a write counter for the first zone exceeds a threshold value. Chambers have peak corrugations which are substantially wider than the intervening valley corrugations. The wireless device exchanges packets with the TE2 device by using the private IP address for outbound packets sent to the TE2 device and performing either address-based routing or packet filtering on inbound packets received from the TE2 device. In the process, it monitors the frequencies with which memory blocks of various sizes are allocated, and it projects from those frequencies future-demand values for memory blocks of those sizes.