Can it be converted to an HD level? What is the best I can hope for?
MotionMan
You can convert everything to HD level but it just mean that you converts the grain & the washout colour to higher resolution (absolutely no gain in quality).
Beside film resolution, it also the depends on the contrast level of exposure on the film emulsion that affect the resolving power, along with camera lenses quality, processing chemical, and digital conversion.
Kodachrome resolving power were 50~100 lp/mm (line pairs per millimeter for low contrast ~ high contrast).
Line pairs aren't the same as pixels but for comparison sake we will stick to the standard 2 pixels per line pair.
HDTV, 1920 × 1080 =
2073600 pixels, or 1280 × 720 =
921600 pixels
Kodachrome at 100 lp/mm, (7.41 * 100 * 2) x (4.01 * 100 * 2) = 1482 x 802 =
1188564 pixels
Kodachrome at 50 lp/mm, (7.41 * 50 * 2) x (4.01 * 50 * 2) = 741 x 401 =
297141 pixels
That said, in real world test with the best of lenses & chemical that were use to test the actual resolving power for Kodachrome is some where around 40~80 lp/mm (if I remember correctly). Therefore HDTV format grain is at least 2X the quality of Super 8 mm format, and the sharpness of digital over that of film is unparallel so as the superb colour of digital.
PS. At one point (before the film/video on computer age) I owned two 8 mm cameras & two 16 mm cameras that I use for animation (cell & claymation).