Recording in Surround Sound

There is inclomplete information in this thread wich may be confusing.

The workflow in 2000.
Record 6 mono channels (or more for creative 5.1. mixing)

Mix over 5 channels. The 6th channel is a LFE channel. (LOW FREQUENCY EFFECT channel). Wich means it's meant for effekt. The 5 channels are full range. But in home 5.1. systems there may be some filtering going on (to get the low content to sub).

After export of the 6 channels the audio was sent to an authoring company. They did the dolby digital export and the DTS export. Where DD was less dynamic and DTS usually more dynamic to give highend hifi owners some extra dynamics. 

Dolby surround is an old standard meant to enhance stereo mixed material.

Around 2000 there was no other format then DVD and SACD. Where SACD was a seperate production method.

Right now we have a multitude of surround production methods. 
The nicest method is surround MP3

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MP3_Surround

I own DISCWELDER. Wich can create a 5.1. disk for playback in DVD-A players. (Any bluray player can playback this content).

Right now authoring to surround would be to create a BLU RAY DISK with severall encoders. It is a speciality and is not cheap. You need severall programs to pull it off professionally.

So, what would you need?
DTS HD MASTER AUDIO suite (for DTS EX)
http://www.minnetonkaaudio.com/ has some nice tools
Apple Final Cut (Pro X) can do blue ray disk authoring. But you need an additional DTS codec.
Adobe products are usually used for creating flash menu's wich are not possible in the authoring suites.
Adobe Premiere CS5.5 can do surround sound and do Bluray disk authoring
Sonic Solutions Scenarist has been THE BLU RAY and DVD authoringsuites. It is not a click some menu's program. The interface is much more open so the user should know a little programming. Some Adobe photoshop doesn't hurt either. The mixing engineer usually supplies a stereo mix, a dolby digital mix and a DTS mix. And since BLU RAY is a rather big medium DTS EX and DD EX might be there too.
But backward compatability is important. So music usually is 48khz16bit or 24bit. But not all old DVD players can handle 24bit. So higher bitrate audio is usually an option within an extended stream.

There has been an authoringsuite for dolby digital and DTS for cd and DVD from minnetonka wich came bundled with Sonar 4 or something like that.

In the end, if you want to create a commercial BLU RAY or DVD it'l take multiple products to create an endresult. And not only Sonar. Sonar can produce 6 mono streams wich can be used to encode the final result. 

There is a lot more to say about this subject. But let's just say the industry doesn't want the little man to create BLURAY content.