clive is an open source command line tool to extract videos and to bypass the need to use Adobe Flash in order to view user-generated content available on video-sharing websites. Clive supports Youtube, GoogleVideo, Dailymotion, metacafe, Guba, Sevenload, Myvideo. Clive converts the downloaded Flash Video into a MP4 file avoiding the need of having a Flash Video Player.
Thanks to Pascal Bleser who suggested this tool!
Features include,
HTTP features (proxy, throtte)
UNIX pipes and stdin redirects
Subsequent re-encoding and playing
Clipboard integration
Accepts multiple URLs in batches (via pipes, clipboard)
Video extraction quality (high/low, varies per host)
URL caching and cache browser
Control over output file names
Continue partially downloaded videos
Parses RSS/Atom feeds
Scans for video links on pages
Install Clive
Packman hosts a YaST Meta Packager file for 1-click installation feature. This 1-click installation is supported in openSUSE 11.0, openSUSE 10.3, openSUSE 10.2, SuSE 10.1, SuSE 10.0.
NOTE: Click here to enable the 1-click feature in openSUSE 10.2
Click 
to download the Yast Metapackager file (.ymp) and automatically download and start YaST Package Manager and download required repositories, clive package and relevant dependencies. Click Next in the welcome page confirming the repositories and click Next in the summary page. Once installed, click Finish.
This should install clive under /usr/bin/ directory
opensuse11:~ # which clive
/usr/bin/clive
Once installed, to download a video simple run clive as follows:
saibaba@opensuse11:~> clive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0fJIflmILY
clive 1.0.0 20080809 [Linux]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0fJIflmILY&fmt=18 100%
WindowsVistavsOpenSUSE11.mp4 5.0MB
=> 1 (5.0MB), failed: 0, skipped: 0
WindowsVistavsOpenSUSE11.mp4 100% 5.0MB 539.5KB/s 00:00:09
To make Clive scan for video links on sites
saibaba@opensuse11:~> clive –scan http://www.youtube.com
clive 1.0.0 20080809 [Linux]
scan: http://www.youtube.com
scanning… ….5….10…. done.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=0AW-LgDx_Qk&fmt=18 100% 1/14
SaidtheRaindroptotheSeedtheYouMesongoriginal.mp4 16.0MB
http://youtube.com/watch?v=TWwBdY1Yglg&fmt=18 100% 2/14
For a nice GUI for clive and addon utilities, click here
Another great tool and yet simple to use.To visit the authors website, click here
It is worth mentioning that one should always wrap the URL with quotes (‘single quotes’ or “double quotes”), especially when the URL contains “&” (e.g. a youtube link that comes from a related page, and which hence contains a “&related=…”) because if not, the shell will interpret the left side of the “&” as a command to put into background, and then try to execute what’s on the right side of the “&” as a command.
Specifically, if you’re less experienced with a shell, just make sure to always use the following:
clive 'http://www.youtube.com/.......'instead of
clive http://www.youtube.com/.......Single quotes are even safer, as they’d also work properly if the URL contains “$” (which is interpreted by the shell as a variable substitution… unless it’s wrapped in single quotes :))
Hi there,
FTA: “Clive converts the downloaded Flash Video into a MP4”
Can you specify how this conversion is done? Is it simply transcoding MP4 compressed video from a FLV container to an MP4 container, or is it re-encoding the FLV into an MP4? Basically, is there quality loss in the video, or is it simply changing the container?
Thank you,
Frank
I found a nice site where you can download videos from youtube and metacafe
It also is usefull to convert files format
http://www.freefileconvert.com
I hope it help, there all files I tried worked
Hi Everyone
Thank you for this useful information.
Here is another great free resource to download Youtube videos online and convert them into various different formats.
This tool also supports Youtube High Definition videos.
http://www.mymusicconverter.com
Hope you find this useful.
Thank you , but I suggest you to take a look at this site : http://www.youtubeto3gp.com/ it will help to download youtube videos in both FLV and 3GP formats.
http://video.deshibinodon.com is a dynamic video portal from where you can search, watch & download video in different format. No need any software.
it is really a nice tool.
That’s a nice tool indeed! Thanks for sharing. I found this website where you can download YouTube videos in many formats.
i use keepvid.com to download.
and not even the clive website attached. shame on you