The second one is ok, it's very much like the first one, I would say it's worth a rent, but the first one is worth buying.
About turning 2.0 movies into 7.1, I would only see movies on tv broadcast in SD as being in 2.0 (stereo) but yes, I uses the PLIIx for all my tv watching wether it be a movie or whatever, I prefer to have the dialogue come from the center channel. Since the audio quality of that stuff isn't all that great to begin with, adding a little PLIIx processing isn't really going to make it sound any worse than it already does... PLIIx only redirects sounds, it does not alter them like DSPs do.