2. I don't want to use some crappy FLV player that only plays FLVs and has an interface from either 1995 or 2034 – I want to use my favorite player, like Media Player Classic.

3. Yes, VLC plays FLVs but it can't fast forward or rewind them. Yes, mplayer plays FLVs but I want a GUI. Yes, mplayer supports GUIs but they all pretty much suck. I don't particularly like VLC's or mplayer's interface – want to fight about it?

Enter the latest version of ffdshow. ffdshow is a decoding filter – think of it as a set of codecs for your media players. It supports FLV1, FLV4, H263, On2 VP6, H264, WMV, DiVX, XViD, and anything you fancy. I tried playing FLVs encoded to FLV4 and VP6, and both worked great in MPC, including fast forwarding and going full screen. Just download and install it, and everything will magically work – no reboot necessary.

As a bonus, here's a handy screenshot that I took of everything ffdshow supports:

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