Game hangs before opening movie/character creation, after first airship cut scene

Two issues which I believe to be related, both observed during Beta Phases 3 and 4. May or may not belong in bug reports, but I cannot post there yet.

Game hangs before opening cut scene/character creation:

Upon opening the client, logging in, and clicking the 'Start' menu item for the first time, the game goes to a black screen with the white loading circle in the corner and remains there indefinitely. The pre-character-creation opening movie does not play, and character creation does not begin.

(In Beta Phase 3, the audio from the opening movie would play, but no video, and afterwards would remain on the same loading screen.)

The only way to circumvent this I have found is to go to 'My Documents\My Games\Final Fantasy XIV - A Realm Reborn', and open the file FFXIV.cfg. Locate the line:

CutsceneMovieOpening 0

and change it to:

CutsceneMovieOpening 1

After saving the file and restarting the client, a new option will be listed in the start menu, 'Opening Movie' (I think). Clicking this results in the same infinite loading screen, but now clicking 'Start' goes straight to character creation.

Also of note: allowing the client to idle at the start screen for some minutes will again display the infinite loading screen instead of playing the 'End of an Era' movie.

Game hangs after first airship cut scene:

Encountered in Beta Phases 3 and 4. After receiving the quest to visit the other cities and boarding the airship for the first time, a cut scene is initiated showing various NPCs bidding farewell to the character. After this cut scene ends, the game returns to a black screen with the white loading circle in the corner, and remains there indefinitely.

The only way I have found to circumvent this is to force exit the client, re-start, board the airship again, and skip through the cut scene until the character is shown arriving in the new city.

This issue has not (yet) occurred with any other in-game cut scene.

Other information:

Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

All graphics and audio drivers are up to date.

Windows update KB2803821 and related patch not installed (message received: 'This update is not applicable to your system').

It seems that there have not been any further posts about this concern being an ongoing issue. Because of this, we are considering it to be resolved. If this does continue to be a concern, please create another thread to further try to discuss resolutions or contact the Support Center at support.na.square-enix.com for assistance.