A:AnswerThe receiver does have an IR in jack it will still an IR repeater to power the sensor. We do not have a recommendation on any specific IR repeaters.
A:AnswerI’m going to say yes it is a great receiver and compatible with any standard type of speaker system I have a Klipsch speaker system and it works great.
A:Answeri only use zone 1 , looking at my remote i believe you can control zones 1,2 and 3 volume separately. if you go on the Onkyo website you can download the manual.
A:Answer12 channels. Your best option would be to buy a separate receiver for your TV. There are a lot of configurations you can use with this unit however. For example, you could set up a 5.1 or 7.1 surround for your TV and output a signal using Zone 2 to a separate 12 channel stereo amp or split it and feed the signal to an 8 channel and a 4 channel amp for your other speakers.