Mixing 5.1 surround sound on MacBook Pro

I've recently connected my MacBook Pro (purchased August 2007) to my DVD player in order to play 5.1 surround sound through the DVD speakers.
This all works fine when I play a DVD on my Mac in surround sound.
However, the main purpose of setting up this connection was so that I could mix surround sound using Soundtrack Pro, and be able to preview the mix whilst mixing. Unfortunately, I've now realised that the Optical Out connection on the MacBook Pro does not support 5.1 mixing and that therefore I am going to need an external surround sound card.
I've read that products such as Griffin Firewave are good solutions to the problem, however, they only exist in America...
I was wondering if anyone knew of any UK products that they could recommend? So far I've only been able to find ones that connect through USB. Would this affect in any way what I am trying to achieve?
Thanks in advance for your help and support.
Harrison

Thanks jgourd,
So what do I need to do to be able to mix in surround sound? So far, the only advice I've had from people (including people at the Regent Street Apple store) is to connect optically to my surround sound speakers. I think, generally, people are confused about MacBook Pro's ability to work with 5.1...
What connection should I be using instead of optical?
By the way, I've found that the Griffin FireWave product I was talking about is available on ebay for a very reasonable price. It plugs into the MacBook Pro by firewire and has 3 3.5mm stereo-mini-jacks outputting 3x2 (= 6) channels line level - so one for L/R, one for C/S and one for LS/RS.
Obviously these need to amplify into 6 speakers. Could I feed these connections to my DVD player? Or would I need to connect directly to a set of speakers?
I appologise if I'm asking stupid questions. But video editing is my "field" - the sound side is something I'm still aiming to get to grips with!
Thanks again for your help =]

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Trust Me.
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