I tried turning on the Samsung TV using the Onkyo “TV on” command and it works surpassingly well and stable. I can then control it using the network. One issue is that after 20 sec the TV would issue command to the Onkyo receiver to change inputs to “TV/CD”. It is not big deal since you can setup a macro for changing back to the desired input, but it is still annoying. Wondering if there is a way to disable it, maybe in the service menu.
I take the “stable” part back. I had to go back to IR.