> and the
> good old stuff is not available on DVD (their video tapes use SECAM and a
> conversion is required before they can be watched outside Eastern Europe or
> France).
eMule is your friend! There are a lot of old films circulating in the peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. One can find Andrzej Wajda's WW II trilogy "Pokolenie" (1955), "Kanal" (1957), and "Popiól i diament" (1958) and associated subtitle files (for those of us who don't understand Polish) without too much difficulty, but maybe you are looking for more obscure stuff. In any case, the films are in AVI format (compressed from DVD) and can play on any computer with movie playing software (SECAM not an issue).
HTH