Surround Sound 5.1 mixing

Final project planning is only in its early days however one of the ideas being thought of is involving something that was a project last year.

Sound-to-picture.
however it needs to be worthy of a final project standard.

ways in which this can be achieved:

• Ensuring that the final audio output is as close to industry standard as is technically possible (long term aim)

when looking at film and tv inputs, more specifically film, audio outputs are surround sound such as the Dolby 7.1 and potential for 9.1 (etc...) used in many cinemas.

However....

Home cinema experiences depends upon the number of speakers...or rather it used to according to new techniques that allow the perception of surround without the added cost of extra speakers.
however the arrival of such technology seems to have been brought on by a need to reach people with surround sound who do not want the added clutter that home cinema systems have.
to have only two speakers and a sub-woofer is a lot more practical and a way that they believe they can entice the 88% of people in the UK into buying in to home cinema (surround sound) technology.
(Allan, 2007)

Sound-on-Sound article from the early 2000's about surround sound and its future: SoS-Surround Sound

Surround sound setups: "Dolby Surround Sound setup"

Interesting extra information to read up on in terms of sound design and sound-to-picture: 
Lopez, M, & Pauletto, S 2009, 'The Design of an Audio Film: Portraying Story, Action and Interaction through Sound', Journal Of Music & Meaning, 8, 2, pp. 1-17, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 September 2012.

References:

Allan, K 2007, 'It's behind you!', Engineering & Technology (17509637), 2, 7, pp. 38-40, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 23 September 2012.