Recognizing that neither is ideal, if you had to choose between a Canon XA-10 and Canon 5D Mark III for green screen work, what would you use?

5d with all the RAW 444 goodness

I thought the firmware update for the Mark III was for 4.2.2 output externally?

I guess it depends on how easy do you need to do sound. Picture wise I bet the Mark III would do better but I don't like either internal recording option.

Ade is right about the value of RAW for greenscreen shooting. I've used the 5D2 with Magic Lantern RAW for greenscreen capture, and the quality of the keys is fabulous.

That said, the workflow of ML RAW can be ugly.It takes a lot of storage and a lot of time to transfer and process. If you want a fast turnaround, this isn't the best solution.

Raw aside, I think the 5D possibly wins on internal bit rate, but I don't know for sure (fact check it!). For some reason, I have it in the back of my mind that 5D can go to 35Mb/s, and XA10 looks like it maxes out at 24. If you're recording HDMI out, I don't know they compare. Probably about the same.

Color sampling -- I think they're both 4:2:0. But you're right -- 5d wins with 4:2:2 HDMI out. Looks like XA10 does 4:2:0 HDMI out: http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/canon-xa-vixia-series-avchd-camcorders/520977-xa10-ninja2.html

Codec -- I think they're pretty much the same. (But I'm not 100% on this -- check it!). But if you're recording with HDMI out, you've got options.

Good info-- from all. Thanks much!
Tim

Ade is right about the value of RAW for greenscreen shooting. I've used the 5D2 with Magic Lantern RAW for greenscreen capture, and the quality of the keys is fabulous.

That said, the workflow of ML RAW can be ugly.It takes a lot of storage and a lot of time to transfer and process. If you want a fast turnaround, this isn't the best solution.

For what it's worth, I think what you do to it in post will make more difference than the choice between these cameras.

Only saw this recently, but it's the best green screen tutorial I've seen. Better than Video Copilot.

Advanced Green Screen Keying [After Effects Tutorial] - YouTube