First, I have to say I love everything about the Onkyo and believe that would be the way to go for you.
That said, Andrew had some very positive things to say about the Yamaha RX-V861 Receiver. You may want to check that out here...
http://www.avrev.com/equip/yamaha_rxv861_receiver/
Personally, I have had Pioneer receivers in the past and found their video processing to be a bit lacking. Too much information color and contrast is lost.
I would look at Onkyo ir Denon. Great audio quality and excellent video processing. My Onkyo upconverts component and composite video to HDMI output like a champ.