Can I hook up a dvd player to my stereo receiver with RCA and output from the receiver to my tv with hdmi?

Answer 1

Depends on the receiver, whether HDMI is just pass-through (most probable), or actually converts an analog input to digital (doubtful).
In any case, what is the point? You are limited by the quality of the first connection. HDMI is not going to make better a bad source and conversions are usually bad. Stick with component video and you will be just fine.