By Karen Bowerman Consumer Affairs reporter

The magic of Harry Potter now appears to be working on the DVD industry with the success of the movie contributing to a huge rise in the sale of DVD players.

It seems kids, who queued for hours to watch the film at cinemas, now want to watch it all over again at home.

DVDs are capturing the market because you do not just get your favourite film, you also get subtitles, sound tracks, directors' comments on how the movie was made and scenes deleted from the final version.

Features such as these are encouraging millions of people to part with their money.

Beating video recorders

Over the last five months, 900,000 DVD players were bought in the UK alone.

Such huge sales mean DVDs have taken just three years to reach the 3 million mark.

Video recorders could last 10 more years

It took video recorders seven years before they achieved similar sales.

Jason Mather of Warner Bros Home Video says the industry is booming, and that sales are set to reach 4 million by the end of the year.

He claims DVD is a good format that offers good quality and games for kids.

He feels people are also being won over because of a drop in prices.

High prices

DVD players now cost around �180-200, compared with nearly �500 three years ago.

The price of films on DVD has also fallen.

But the editor of What Video and TV, Adrian Justins, is slightly less optimistic.

He feels video recorders still have at least 10 years left in them because DVDs that both play and record are still expensive, costing more than �700, compared with players which cost around �200.

That, he claims, means people either need two bits of equipment, or use DVDs just to play films, rather than record from the TV.

He says that until DVD recorders come down in price people will stick with the video equipment they have.

And that seems to be the case.

Nine times more UK homes have video recorders than have DVD players.