I've installed Sims 2 Ultimate Collection on Windows 11 with minor graphical issues that I had solved already, one annoying issue that kept bugging me however is that custom AVI files stay totally black whenever a sim is watching these on their TVs.
Tried changing codecs from VP6 to Xvid to uncompressed AVI and utilized standard rendering settings (128x128, 15fps) but none seem to help with the black screen issue, only the audio plays with no issue.

Here is with the TV on:


Contrast with turned-off TV:

Does the attached movie work? If so then we know the problem is the movie file, not the game or installation.

It is not, I still get the black screen issue. This problem has more to do with my game installation.

Can you play the file outside of the game? Try downloading an AVI codec pack.

I have tested the files in my older computer and I can say this issue is definitely related with Windows 11, this doesn't apply to the default .movie clips. Could look for other Sims 2 players on W11 which might figure out workarounds that should solve the broken videos.

Can you play any .avi files? It's most likely that you don't have certain codecs installed; you can download free AVI codecs for Win 11 (not all will be installed by default on the operating system).

I had this problem on an old computer. I was never able to fix it, but I believe it was a graphics card issue. There were some other people with the same graphics card who had the same problem.

These play normally on media players.

But you can't play the avi file I uploaded? Possibly you have some codecs missing.

Did you say Windows 11? Oh no.