Used Kodak archive writers cost about $30K (not a typo) are quite large, the modular cassettes for film cost about $1K each, film reloads for each cassette cost

Used Kodak archive writers cost about $30K (not a typo) are quite large, the modular cassettes for film cost about $1K each, film reloads for each cassette cost about $10 each, a roll of film holds like "ten thousand" images, and the machine can burn an image in about one second. All varying by factors of perhaps four depending on individual model. They eat PDF and TIFF (fax) files, also others. Fundamentally its "just a printer". Theoretically a completely hands-off lights-out machine, much like theoretically a laser printer never needs hand-holding... of course laser printers are mfgr'd "fire and forget" whereas the kodak archive writers service contract was something like $5K/yr. Part of the problem is the target market; this was at a financial services company where the supplier knew they could charge pretty much anything they wanted and it would get passed along as a tiny fraction of the end user customer contract cost. If a $100M financial services contract involves a $5K service contract for some obscure accounting thingy no one really cares. Given that situation is similar to pre-consumer era 3-d printing, I figure a really smart hacker who doesn't care about reproducible results or speed or reliability could squirt something out for a tenth the costs; but even at a tenth, thats still going to be "laser cutter" like costs. Film is never cheap; high res film is gonna be worse, just how it is.