I wanted to get the ECM-HQP1 Surround microphone from sony for the PC1000 I just bought.

I was wondering, is it 5.1 surround sound or just surround sound?

Is it worth the 149.00?(99.00 B&H Photo)

I looks real big on the camera in the picture. I will be editing my movies with pinnacle studio 9.4, so I would like to avoid any problems getting that audio to work on this software.

From what I have read, people that own the mic seem to like it.
It records 4 channels of 12 bit audio, which is obviously not as good as 16 bit audio. Computer software will do the rest to make it 5.1
I don't think that Studio 9 supports import of 5.1 audio, it only will export 5.1 audio.
You can create 5.1 audio with Pinnacle 9 with your current audio. It converts your 2 channels into 5.1
The mic from Sony says it records left front, right front, left rear, and right rear on seperate channels, so you could actually get the surround effect you may be looking for. For the extra cost, I don't think it is worth it because the quality is not as good in 12 bit. If you want 5.1, use a quality mic that records in 16 bit and convert the 2 channels to 5.1 later.
That is just my opinion.

With the PC1000 you don't have a lot of choices. The built-in mike is o.k., but not great. Other than that, there being no mike input, you are limited to the "Surround" mike or the "Shotgun" Mike, which are the only ones that fit into the special socket.

I found that the "Shotgun" mike sounded very tinny, and returned it. The "Surround"mike sounds noticeably better than the built in mike and I use it whenever possible. It does record four tracks as advertised, but the problem is getting the four tracks out of the camera. The only way to get the rear tracks out seems to be by using the AV out, setting the output to the rear channels, and recording separately from the front channels. Then you have the problem of synching the four channels.

I have ended up using the Surround mike for its better quality and recording stereo at 16 bit. Then I let the editing software (Vegas 6.0b) "create" Dolby 5.1
sound, which is not truly surround, but sounds pretty good played back on 5.1 speakers.

The only "true" surround I have heard was created with the same mike on a Sony 403 DVD camcorder. That was easy to use but hard to edit.

The easiest way to get the extra channels out of the camera (other than by using a Vaio computer with Click To DVD software), is to use Scenalyzer Live (www.scenalyzer.com). It can save the extra channels as a separate WAV file during capture.

Thanks to GMB and KFish (on another thread) for suggesting Scenanlyzer. It finally solves the problem I have been wrestling with for months, of extracting the rear channels simultaneously with the front. It works really well and has many other useful features (www.scenanlyzer.com).

I just bought the pc1000, it should be here tomorrow (butterfly photo). I am also wondering about this surround mic. Can you please direct me to the pic you found of it mounted on the pc1000? I'd like to see just what it looks like on it. From comments here, it seems like the shotgun mic isn't an option for me.

We're having our first baby in Oct. and would like to get it all set up and ready for any situation. I bought the HVL-HL1 light & NP-FA70 battery on ebay for less than half of retail prices. It looks like this surround mic is going to be cheaper from B&H than on ebay.

Thank you in advance.

EDIT: I got the pc1000 today and now I see the picture w/ the mic on it (in the accessory catalog) It doesn't look that big, it just sits up pretty high off the top of the cam.