Well, I finally was able to play play with this, and the problem ended up being the HDMI input to the TV. I connected a different component directly to the TV with a different HDMI cable, and still had the problem. So, now everthing is connected with component and working just fine. I frankly don't see much or any of a difference in picture quality as between HDMI and component, so in the end it was just a pain in the neck and I lost the convenience of using HDMI cables. (It seems that my receiver won't pass a signal it receives through HDMI out to the TV via component, so I had to reconnect everything via component. I don't know if that is the case with all receivers, but I do feel like I've read about that on a number of occassions.)
Thanks again for the thoughts on the problem, as they were right on target. All's well that ends well.
