For Access Copies of your home movies, you should naturally consider what devices you will wish to view them on. Currently, DVD is perhaps the most common option, allowing you to screen films on your television or computer (though, increasingly, computers lack DVD drives, relying, like tablets do, upon ‘streaming’ media). You might, therefore, like to have your films delivered on a hard drive or other digital storage medium that enables you to import the footage to a computer editing program where you can edit them yourself and produce your own DVD versions. Keep in mind that grandparents or overseas relatives may rely on formats different from your own.
When making Access copies, you may be faced with difficult questions as to what footage to include. Some services will allow you to pay for both a complete / raw transfer as well as an edited version – or even multiple version appropriate to different audiences with whom you might wish to share them. For instance, you might want a complete version for yourself as well as a shorter version, including only public scenes, to donate to a local historical society, school, or friend.
It is usually a good idea to purchase multiple Access copies of your movies, so that they can be readily shared with friends and family and discarded if damaged. The marginal cost for additional DVD copies of film transfers is typically very low compared to the overall cost of having the work done in the first place.