Update, I was able to get in touch with my contact at Fallout Games. First off, he stated that the batch their ordered was supposed to have longer controller cables, and that their next revision will have that this go around. Right now they are comparable with a normal Genesis controller, but they should be closer to that 10 foot length enjoyed by their current SNES clones.
While the image appears sharper than the SNES clone, the Minigen HD does have that video distortion on horizontal movement issue. I have forwarded the following video to them for review. My guess is that the pixel uniformity is not there, or the signal is interlaced coming into the scaler, causing this artifacting. All that being said, it still beats playing via composite on an HD screen. There is some latency, but it's not bad. Some of the deke timings might be a bit off against those top tier goalies like Roy or Belfour, but maneuvers like checks, quick passes, really aren't affected IMO. I'm not a pass shot guy so I can't speak to that, but i'd think that would also be affected somewhat by the minor delay.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1g-YrAAq6S1W_sHuoi4UppNZ_PotEuxwm
^^ link for the video