[old_tv_nut]

I don't know the answer to what is the latest being used to scan film.

However, I WANT to see the original grain in HD or higher resolution versions of classic films. It is an important part of the character of the film process.

I think that Kodak determined decades ago what resolution is needed to carry the negative character including grain through all intermediate stages, and equipment to do it it has been available for a long time. IIRC, the figure determined for 35 mm motion picture film was approximately 4K resolution (without MPEG compression) such that the initial scan and multiple-generation intermediate stages would not visibly degrade the initial negative image or its grain structure.

At first, the final bottleneck for digital delivery was the standard definition DVD MPEG coding, but now Blu Ray discs (HD resolution) provide a quite faithful reproduction of the original film character.