I too have a Canon XA10 and thought that the picture in the preview window, even when set on Best quality, looked not so sharp. I thought it might be a lighting issue but I purchased some quality softboxes so I know I have plenty of light now. I’m going to be shooting a lot of video whose ultimate destination will be videos for commercial download on the internet. I’m also trying to figure out the best workflow/project settings/rendering/camera settings to get the best possible picture.
It’s been a while since you posted so I’m just wondering if you eventually came to a conclusion as to what settings ended up being the best?