A First Example 

About scene files, animation ini files and the clock values.

"sphere.pov"

#version 3.7;
global_settings {  assumed_gamma 1.0 }
//---------------------------------------
camera{ ultra_wide_angle
        angle 75
        right x*image_width/image_height
        location  <0.0 , 1.0 ,-3.0>
        look_at   <0.0 , 0.0 , 0.0> }
//---------------------------------------
light_source{ <1500,2500,-2500>
              color rgb<1,1,1> }
//---------------------------------------
sky_sphere{ pigment{color rgb<1,1,1>}}
//---------------------------------------
// the rotating sphere:
sphere{ <0,0,0>, 0.25
        texture { pigment{ rgb<1,0,0> }
                  finish { diffuse 0.9
                           phong 1}
                } // end of texture
        translate < 1.0, 0, 0>
        rotate < 0,360*clock,0>//  <-!!!!
       } // end of sphere ---------------
//----------------------------------- end

Note: The sphere is moved to the right side by the statement translate < 1.0, 0, 0>. Then it will be turned in this animation around the y axis by rotate < 0,360*clock 0>.
(Be sure to translate before you rotate it! Otherwise the result will not be very fascinating!)
The "clock" value (it's zero by default!) will be defined by an animation ini file.

Test renderings: We can start rendering this scene file like a normal pov file for test renderings. We don't need to declare a value for "clock". The default value of "clock" is zero. To see how the scene i.e. in the middle of our animation looks like, we can replace temporarily the word "clock" by i.e. "0.5".
Output file type:
New in POV-Ray 3.7: The default output file type has changed to png (DTA don't understand .png files!)
The new output file type ".jpg" works now correctly. Command line: +fj
(It's also recommanded because of the usually big number of frames in animations).
In POV-Ray 3.6 default output file on Windows was ".bmp". Command line: +fb

Step 2: Starting the rendering of the animation
We select an appropriate render solution. For testing it would be a good idea to select a small image size (i.e. "160 x 120") without anti aliasing ("No AA").

We start the animation by starting the ini file (not the pov file!!!!)
We start rendering with the ini file in the active window!
POV-Ray start rendering the file "sphere1.pov" with the "clock" value of 0 and saves the resulting image as frame #1 with the file name "sphere101.bmp".
Then the program calculates the next "clock" value (new clock = last clock + 1/Final_Frame, here: 0 + 1/30) and starts rendering of our scene "sphere1.pov" again. The output will be saved as "sphere102.bmp".
This continues until "clock" = 1 is reached with the output file "sphere130.bmp".

Any probems by starting animations with POV-Ray 3.6 running on Windows Vista?
Be sure that you have seen my hints about " 10. Using POV-Ray 3.6 with Windows Vista "!

Step 3: Post processing
POV-Ray is not able to save the output of an animation rendering in any other form then simply numbered frames.
We can use a fast graphic viewer with a slice show function to see our animations.
If we want to save our animations as animated gif, avi, mov or mpeg file, we need to use other programs.

To achieve this there is a great variety of freeware and shareware programs.
For making avi files we can use a shareware program like "Dave's Targa Animator v 3.0 - DTA30". For making mpeg files we can i.e. use "avi2mpg1.exe" - this program is distributed under the GNU copyright. Software and utilities for 3D animation we find i.e. here: www.povray.org/resources/links/3D_Animation_Utilities/.