Well, made some progress in getting to the bottom of this. It appears that the LCD TV (a Samsung LN-S4696) is the culprit. I connected a small 7" portable video monitor to the composite video outputs on the 211, powered on the 211 - remote works fine right from the get-go; no delays, nothing. Everything works as it should. I then turn on the TV (connected to the 211 via HDMI and component) and bam! remote does not work on the 211. I turn off the LCD TV and things once again go back to normal. So, obviously something happens when the TV is turned on that makes the 211 not respond to remote commands. Some one suggested that IR radiation given off when the TV is powered on may be overpowering the IR signal from the 211 remote. The question now is how to get around this? Any ideas? What's perplexing is that after several minutes, the 211 does start responding to the remote although it is sluggish at times.