Originally posted by: Dunedain
Laserman: So, if you took this 2,000ft capacity 16mm WorkPrinter that Puggo has and pointed a 1080i video camera (are non-professional video cameras at full 1920x1080i?) at the film frames from each Star Wars 16mm reel, then you'd have a full HD capture of the trilogy ready to be viewed at the films' normal speed on a HD optical disk (after proper compression to fit), right? How would the quality of the capture using this method compare to using a film scanner (I'm assuming Puggo's 400ft. 16mm film scanner can do about 2k resolution)?

Now *I* am getting confused

My (Puggo's) 16mm WorkPrinter is 2000ft, not 400ft. Neither one is a film scanner. The 400ft WorkPrinter is the 8mm one. In theory, yes I believe you could point a 1080i video camera at it, although I'm not sure what software you'd use to capture the higher resolution frames and assemble them into a video. Cinecap does that for standard DV, but I'm not sure if something comparable for HD has been written that isn't embedded in a super-high-end wetgate system. Maybe Roger at moviestuff can answer that one.

A more important point is whether the optics in the WorkPrinter would justify an HD encoding. As good as the WorkPrinter is, it has its limitations... shining a light on the film exposes grain and scratches that are not so prominent on a rank transfer. I'm skeptical that an HD capture on a WorkPrinter would look any better than a standard transfer.