What seems to be the best setup for shooting on an XHA1 for the maxium range the camera can offer if you are OK with adjusting in post, especially dynamic range but also color and sharpness and noise, in the following

Knee
Gamma
Black Stretch
Master Pedistal
Coring
Noise Reduction
Sharpness
Color Gain (is this the same as a saturation boost?)

Anything else I am missing?

Stephen,

With regards to your Color Gain question, yes it's similar to color staturation in post.

For your other questions you might want to look at this thread:
http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=107691

Personally, I find that:
Gama set to Cine 2
Black set to Press
Color Gain set to your preference

does it for me. I've done some testing from what I've read in the thread mentioned above.

However, personally, I don't use the presets and simply bump up the levels in post. The video doesn't look so good out of the box but after bumping up the levels it looks great.

I treat the default settings like Camera RAW in that you get all the detail you can have and then in post you fix it the way you want. But I'm sure many people have done their own tests and will have a more educated conclusion :).

Shiv.

However, personally, I don't use the presets and simply bump up the levels in post. The video doesn't look so good out of the box but after bumping up the levels it looks great.
I treat the default settings like Camera RAW in that you get all the detail you can have and then in post you fix it the way you want. But I'm sure many people have done their own tests and will have a more educated conclusion :).
Shiv.

That's exactly the methodology that I have approached the issue with.
I don't have the technical know-how to objectivly test what gives me the most lattitude/dynamic range for post production level/colour enhancement.
I'm not convinced that some of the people that have commented do either hehe.