Also worth a look is the 21 disk Hammer set for twenty-five pounds

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000HN31KQ/ref=oss_product

Pal converted DVD shouldn't look jerky unless the player doing it is really bad, some US TVs and players will even play PAL as is, but the player or the disk would have to be region-free.

That said the Laurel & Hardy box is great, supposedly there was a German set that is now OOP which was a bit better, but the UK set is pretty nice. The only place it falters is that some of the silent print don't look as nice as they do in the looong OOP IMAGE series "The Lost Films Of Laurel & Hardy" the sound shorts are however superior to the Hallmark US DVDs. The best thing about the box is you get everything that survives of the L&H shorts and features for Roach, both sound and silent.

This is where I get all my region-free stuff, I've ordered from them for years. It looks like you can get a good player for as little as fifty-bucks.
http://www.regionfreedvd.net/