I am getting severe audio stuttering in the cutscenes only. Is there any way anyone's cured this? I've got k-lite codec pack installed, media player classic, vlc player and recent wmp installed. When I play the cutscenes files externally they play fine with wmp and vlc, but have the same stuttering when played with media player classic. Is it possible to force the game engine to use certain codecs or media players to play the video cutscenes?

I don't know if there's a way around this. I didn't have issues when I first played the game back in 2007, but I (and many others) have had stuttering cutscenes in recent times. As you say, they are flawless in external players like VLC - so luckily it's just an annoyance, not a game-breaker.