A system in which AV data stored in an AV server is previewed by a plurality of edit terminals includes a recording apparatus which is connected to those edit terminals and which is capable of higher speed access than a recording element in the AV server, and a first processing element which makes a request to transfer AV data from the AV server to the recording apparatus and a second processing element which previews AV data from the recording apparatus are provided for each of the edit terminals. Accordingly, a material stored in the AV server can be previewed by the plurality of edit terminals simultaneously in parallel without being limited to the number of the input and output ports of the AV server, and the waiting time becomes short when the edit terminal previews the material stored in the AV server.