I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with image manipulation in post using such software as After Effect, Magic Bullet, Digital Film Tools, or any other Color Correction software with the HD10U…Thanks in advance.

Yes all of that can be mode to work easily if you are not using the M2T file structure that comes off the camera -- the MPEG2 transport stream is not compatible with many tools. On the PC convert your M2T files to uncompressed, HUFYUV or CineForm AVIs. On the Mac convert to uncompressed or DC30 (or similar) Quicktime.