The SciFi footage that I have is fairly decent, but it has gone through a bit more compression and processing than I would like. Consider this - the video that I recorded first started out as a digital MPEG 2 signal - in order for me to record it, the digital MPEG2 signal was converted to analog in my DirectTV receiver. Chances are the conversion to analog wasn't that great - the components in the DirectTV receiver are probably cheap to keep manufacturing costs down and profits up. So anyway - the analog conversion probably wasn't as good as it could be - and that converted analog signal got transferred to my Digital 8 recorder with an S-Video cable. My Digital 8 recorder records in MiniDV format - which adds all new video compression artifacts to anything I record from tv. So in the end, the SciFi Army of Darkness footage has been degraded quite a bit from the original MPEG 2 signal. I wish there was a way for me to bypass the analog conversion and additional MiniDV compression, but I currently do not possess the necessary equipment to capture the original MPEG 2 signal.
Even if I cannot obtain a copy of the digital MPEG 2 signal, that doesn't mean that the SciFi footage will look bad. I have spent months researching different techniques to filter the SciFi footage and I have recently reached a point where I feel happy with how the footage looks. Still, I know it could look better if I was working with a direct capture of the MPEG 2 satellite signal.