I did another test using an old NTSC SE capture I made more than two years ago - rough, no optimal capture settings, no high quality cables, mid-low laserdisc player for NTSC standard... -> (click for bigger version):

(you can download a few frames clip here - just 1.33MB)

Top spanish HDTV ("TodoTV") - ColourMatch'ed to be close to the LD (if you see strange colored artifacts, it's the script fault...), bottom LD capture, denoised, upscaled and regrained a bit.

I can't think what could be achieved with proper capture settings, high quality cables, and the Pioneer HLD-X9...

Now, I don't want to tell that a denoised and upscaled LD video is on par with HDTV, but if no other HD version exists, at least we could obtain a decent version using laserdisc as source (some examples that came into my mind: Ransom Extended Cut, The Arrival with alternate ending...)