ffdshow:
ffdshow is a neat all-in-one decoding solution that handles almost all popular decoding codecs in a single codec.  If you want to be able to playback just about any file you'll encounter,  this is the choice you want.  And it is free Open Source,  so it is constantly being developed by many programmers around the world.

Xvid:
If you plan to encode your own videos,  I recommend also grabbing this package. This is the actual Xvid codec,  which will both decode and encode your videos to the mpeg4 format,  without having to deal with the adware or money involved with the commercial Divx encoding package.  There is also a good guide available on AMV.org on the best settings to use for optimal quality when encoding AMVs.

As far as players go:

VLC Player:
A great little player that decodes quite a few popular codecs right out of the box,  meaning its built into the program,  so doesn;t require you to download and install any extra codecs.  Its a great player to use as a backup also,  incase you have trouble playing a particular file in another player.  Recommended.

BSPlayer:
A nice free feature rich player alternative to windows media player,  without much of the overhead that windows media player tends to have.  Its main strong point is its many features that allow you to customize your viewing experience.

The Core player:
This is similar to BSplayer in features and quality.  I personally prefer this one for a few minor reasons, and I find it to be a little less troublesome than Bsplayer,  but the player pretty much is just as functional aside from some few minor differences.  Recomended.

Video Lan Client:
The quickest and easiest way to play mp4 files is to just download the standalone player VLC,  as it supports mp4 files streight out of the box without needing to install anything else.  You must have 0.8.4 or later version for it to work properly however. 

Video for Windows interface:
The  method to get video playable through the video for windows interface, (so you can use windows media player for example, to play)  is to download and install ffdshow   and the Haali media splitter. Remember to uninstall any previous versions of ffdshow and haali before installing the latest versions.  You will have to setup ffdshow after install to decode H264.

CCCP:
There is now an easier way to get video playable through the video for windows interface,  that is to get and install the CCCP (Combined Community codec pack), as it will have everything already setup for you to decode mp4 and mkv files after install, and also comes with a useful tool to detect and remove codecs that may conflict with the cccp codec package.  If the above method doesn't work,  try this package.   I actually recommend this method for those who don't really know what they are doing,  as this usually works just after a simple install of the package and setting up the settings that automatically come up after the install (defaults will work just fine in most cases),  and the site has extensive info to help you get it working if you do run into problems.

Downloading videos on this site is easy.  simply search for the video by its category on the right panel,  search by clicking the category you want.  "Romance" will bring up all romance type videos for example.  The database engine will bring up a list of videos matching the category,  simply click on the thumbnail image to see the rest of the video information and any alternate download links,  or you can skip right to the download by just clicking on at the bottom of each AMV result on the page.  If the video is also available in the new mp4 codec,  the link to download that version will be .

 If your browser is configured to automatically play video files in the browser and you wish to save it to your hard drive,  simply right click on the link and select your browser's "Save as..." option.  In Firefox it is called "Save Link as...".

Download interruptions:
Since Internet Explorer and Firefox don't properly support file resuming,  We recommend you get a file download manager to download our AMVs.  A good free one is FDM (Free Download Manager).  Download this,  then when it is running,  you can simply drag all our videos from the [Download Now] link to the little FDM window in the bottom right corner of the screen to have FDM download the file.