How to make a decent surround mix?

I've never used STP, but I'm hoping you experts can help. I've posted this question in the FCP forum but got no respsonse. So I did a little more searching and realized this might be a better place for the question.
My goal is to take two-channel HD video, add a stereo music track, and produce something that sounds good in full surround. Is there any good tutorial on how I might make a modestly better surround mix? I'm not trying to win an Oscar here, or become a sound engineer. So simpler is better, please.
I've worked out a way to put surround sound into my HD movie, burn it to a DVD AVCHD using Toast, and get it all to play on a blu-ray player, Cool!! It looks great and has 5.1 Dolby Digital surround, all on a cheap DVD disk. I get about 30 minutes on the disk.
But now I realize I don't know jack about how to make it sound good. All I've tried so far is putting a stereo song into the surround speakers with the movie stereo in the fronts as usual. It's pretty cool, but it isn't exactly "immersive".
I think I might get a better result using an upmixing tool such as Upmix 1.1.1 from Cycling '74 (or is it KVR Audio?) to simulate 3D sound from my 2D source materials.
Has anyone tried something like this? Is it worth the bother? Any tips appreciated.

My surround experiments test results:
Content: Two stereo tracks, a movie and a song.
Objective: Make a nice surround mix, something better than sending both tracks only to the fronts
Tools: Soundtrack Pro, Compressor 2.3.1 I have no system for "live" surround playback and no software designed to simplify front-rear fades and 3D sound placement. To test any mix, I have to burn it to disk and preview it on my (calibrated 7.1) home theater system.
*Hold Fixed:* No change was made to the stereo pan of either stereo pair. In all tests I let Compressor create a center mix at -3dB and a LFE using its low-pass filter checkbox.
*Experimental Design:* I have just four levers to pull - the level of each stereo pair in the front and in the rear. To simply testing, I used just 3 levels, 0 dB (no change), -3 dB and off, -∞. Four variables at 3 levels gives you 81 total combinations. Since I have to burn to disk, I can't run all those. Many tests can be eliminated as nonsensical, eg. the one test with all levels at -∞. Further eliminating the combinations that give level totals that are obviously too low or too extreme, I was left with 8 mixes I actually tested:
Movie Music
_F / R F/R Comment_
1. 0 -∞ -∞ 0 Uncomfortable, too "obvious"
2. -3 0 0 0 music a little dominant
3. -3 0 0 -3 music too front
4. 0 -3 0 0 not bad, music more forward than #6
5. 0 0 0 -3 music too front
6. 0 -3 -3 0 my favorite - very smooth transition when music starts
7. 0 0 -3 0 music too rear, oddly
8. 0 0 0 0 result pending
Conclusion: It's possible to make a dramatically improved sound mix over the two-channel stereo that is exported by iMovie. A starting point is simply duplicating the front signal into the surround speakers. A slight fade - in my case the movie was reduced in the rear and music reduced in the front - gives a nice "opening" of the sound and some sense of 3D. I believe this preset could be applied blindly to many movie+music projects and give an acceptable result.

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