(Solution) How to fix black videos

I've recently gotten into Civ 2 and was enjoying it without the videos since I'm using Windows 7 64bit RC. With the drivers that come with my version of Civ 2 MGE I couldn't install the Indeo drivers due to compatibility issues. I was just about to beat my first game with a space ship and the end video wouldn't play. I couldn't finish the game. So I came on here to find a solution. No one on here had an answer so I went looking for one and I found it.

These drivers are good for Windows XP, current versions, and 64bit of those versions. I hope this helps anyone with this problem.

Vista and 7 users: Run in XP compatibility mode.

Just run the setup and make sure you do a custom install. When it gets to the part about the different drivers you want to install make sure you unmark Indeo Web Browser Plugin. If you don't, it will try to find Netscape.

Good luck!

My apologies for resurrecting this one after a year.

First of all, thanks for the updated drivers. After installing MGE and ToT from the Chronicles disk, the installer failed to install the Video Drivers under Windows 7, 64bit. As you suggest, it's a 64bit incompatibility. There's no error message during the install, just nothing after the announcement that it now would install the Indeo Drivers. However, when trying to run VFWInstall.exe directly from the disk, I get a popup asking for a 32bit or 64bit version.

As a result of this, I first had no videos at all. Unexpectedly, installing Age of Empires (which seems to use a similar type of avi files) enabled the MGE videos, but not the ToT videos. Installing the updated drivers from the opening post enabled the ToT videos.

Thanks to this thread, the problem is solved, apart from one minor nuisance: The audio is stuttering when the videos are played inside the game. With some videos (like the ToT opening that has lots of effects) it's barely noticeable, with others, Adam Smith with Handel's Queen of Sheba (wonder17.avi) being a good example, it sounds just awful.

I'm not sure it's the drivers as such because (a) there's not audio stuttering when playing the movie files in the Windows Media Player and (b) the movies play without audio stuttering when run within Civ2 2.42 (which I run under Windows 3.1 within DOSBox).

Does anyone else have this problem and is there a way to solve it? I realise this is a very minor issue, but since I got the more serious ones solved thanks to the help and fixes found in this forum, I thought I might as well try this one.