timeslip: ok, for anyone with this particular problem, there's 4 avi files in the data\intro folder. If you move them out of the way, the game should be able to start up. There's a codec in the k-lite codec pack that causes that crash, but silver should be blocked from loading it, so maybe it's coming from somewhere else... What codec packs do people have installed?
You might be able to view the movies in windows media player or something (They aren't used in game, just on startup and at the game end, so watching the first two before playing and them leaving them out of the the folder wont effect gameplay.) or configure the problem codec pack to ignore silver, so you can safely put the avi files back.
Thanks to Skheart for testing that for me. :)
I've tried moving the .avi to a new folder with still no luck when I goto start the actual game, it just black screens, I press ESC and the error appears and goes away quickly, strange really :/ Any ideas?