I have an Onkyo receiver (not sure what model, but it's a few years old, bought in 2008) and I recently redid my setup. I only have 4 HDMI ports on this receiver and five devices, so I have my DirecTV box hooked up into the receiver via component with an optical cable for audio, and it's fed to my TV via HDMI.

The default name for the component input is different than the default name for the optical (can't change the optical) so I changed the component name to match the optical name. Everything works fine, but whenever I shut off the receiver and turn it back on, I have to go back into the setup, shut off the receiver, and turn it back on, then the DirecTV picture will appear. The strange thing is that the setting isn't being erased--it's still there.

I hope this makes sense, it's difficult to explain. Any insight?

From what i read it seems the receiver is converting the component signal and outputting it through HDMI to the TV?

In any case I also have an older Onkyo Receiver (2007 i believe) and the HDMI signal sometimes takes a few seconds to be sent to the TV after I turn it on, when I switch inputs there is also a slight delay...I don't know if it means the switch port is dying but might be since I have read it happened to other Onkyo owners before....

Yes, that is correct.

I doubt this is the issue--it a consistent problem.