Digital BW, The Print

When printing a 16 bit file does the printer convert it to 8 bit?  
I've been trying to get the author of Qimage to allow processing of 
16 bit grayscale files.  Qimage has a feature called "print to file"  
where you don't send the file to the printer but to another 
location.  It's a great feature but it takes a grayscale 16 bit file 
and converts it to 8 bit RGB.  Anyway, Mike Chaney has responded with 
the following, "I'd also have to question why you'd want to print 16 
bits/channel when printing to file because printers cannot accept 
anything but 8 bit data (even when using a RIP). As far as I know, 
and unless things have changed recently, all printers (the hardware 
itself) are based on 8 bits/channel even when dealing with grayscale."

I was thinking that it might happen when using the Roark curves and 
the Epson drivers but how about using QTR?

Thanks,

Tom