Capturing Letterboxed LD to anamorphic DVD

[skeg64]

Hi,
Is there such a device that can zoom in on the picture of a letterboxed LD, and output only this zoomed portion?
I am trying to take advantage of the extra resolution of 16x9 enhanced DVD. But if I just capture the full LD frame at 720x576 (maximum of my cap card), then crop the black bars, pad to maintain the 1.85:1 AR and resize to 720x576 again, I am losing the extra resolution anyway because I am just resizing with the PC.
So if there is a device that could output only the zoomed picture (by processing the composite signal, NOT digital resampling), could I capture that in 720x576 and thus have more detail in the capture?
I know that a 16x9 TV can do this, but I think that would be digital resampling and also it would not output to a PC. If anyone knows of such a device could you please let me know what it is.
Also, am I correct in this thinking, or way off? Would I just be capturing detail that isn't there in the first place, or would there actually be some improvement? Thanks for your help!

[chicola]

The only way to do that IS with digital resampling.

In a separate device or afterwards in your PC, but always with digital sampling.

[skeg64]

Thanks. So is there any way of actually taking advantage of the extra resolution for 16x9 content, without having the original film?

[rogue203]

Thanks. So is there any way of actually taking advantage of the extra resolution for 16x9 content, without having the original film?

No

[gshelley61]

It's much easier (and usually provides better results) to properly capture the whole letterboxed frame as best you can, then digitally zoom the finished picture with your DVD player or digital widescreen TV. The scalers in modern players and TV's are very good and will likely outperform any resizing methods that you can do on the computer.

There is a Star Wars LD conversion thread that goes into detail about letterbox to anamorphic conversion here:

https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=102812&highlight=star+wars+hit