I love video chat, but I’m currently stuck with my dad where we can see his video but he can’t see ours (using Skype).  We know it works on our end.   My dad can’t figure out why it doesn’t work any more, and (debugging remotely) I can’t figure it out either.

I loved Skype when it first came out:   it was simple, punched through firewalls reliably, and had great audio quality.   Now, I feel like it’s devolved to the iChat / old Net Meeting experiences, where each session begins with 15 minutes of debugging (can’t connect, no audio/video, etc.)

I want a video chat client that “just works”, and works especially well when one of the participants isn’t that computer saavy:

• Rock-solid firewall traversal (e.g. no iChat “communcation errors”)
• Simple setup and config; eliminate all “advanced” options
• Remote debug of problems.  With permission, let me poke around the other computer’s chat configuration (e.g which USB device, audio settings, etc.).  If soemthing doesn’t work, give very specific and detailed error messages.  Bonus:  include screen sharing or at least screen snapshots.
• Great echo cancellation (modern PCs have the signal-processing horsepower) so nobody needs microphones headphones
• Dynamic quality settings for video and audio based on bandwidth.
• Pre-configuration option:   a way for me to configure a link, send to a friend for them to download and install, in a way that it’s intially configured to chat back to me.
• A test call that checks everything (like Skype’s echo123, but for video too).
• Launch and chat.  Support for individual desktop icons that initiate a video chat to a specific recipient.

I’m half-tempted to start an open/collaborative effort to build this.