In the 1970s, the BBC produced "Secret Garden" for TV, and sold tapes. I recently got one of the old PAL tapes and had a technician make copies to DVD for me (2 for $35 U. S.). BBC catalogues show that they have put most of their great TV productions on DVD, but not "Secret Garden," which is far superior to the Maggie Smith-Disneyfied thing released in N. AM.

Sony and others produce a PAL-NTSC player that takes both kinds of tapes (as well as DVDs); the Sony would have cost me about $250.
For someone who wishes to play a collection of PAL tapes after moving to N. Am., it would be worth the cost, but for a very few tapes, get a technician to turn the tapes into DVDs. Here in Calgary, with over 20% immigrant population, the techies make money converting message videos.

My daughter just bought a Chinese-made region-free DVD player for Can$60 which seems to be the lowest price in western Canada, and it works well; a KOSCH DV-X721c. Website www.kosch.com: Kosch

Unless I must, I don't copy music with my PC; I use my music system, complete with lp record players, tape decks and a DVD player with the TV- the compleat couch potato is the way to go.