I tried it today and had a horable video quality. Audio was pretty descent though.

On other hand I've been using Skype for many years and it really rearly lets me down. So I guess I'll stick to Skype for now.

I just installed Google for chatting with video because my students say it's better than Skype.  Time will tell!

I would guess that the problem is in the computer, not the Skype.

The easiest thing to do is using the audio not video connection. Also I would recommend to scan computer for viruses, worms and malware; remove all the unnecessory applications running on the background; remove all the toolbars in your browser; check available disk space and install all the available Windows updates.

If the computer is not so powerful you can disable a lot of unnecessory Window services.

If you need more details - yell.

Alex.

Sometimes the problem is not skype itself but the poor connection you have. I use Skype a lot and sometimes it behaves strange, yes, but I wouldn't say that's most of the time. Maybe if you have some other programs running on the back (like transfer of files or P2P) it will keep crashing.... but I (so far) haven't found any other IM service that I could like more than Skype. 

although i also don't like install mutiple  IM software in my PC/Laptop, but the preference is not same for ervery one, Skype, MSN, AIM, all i don't like, i only use Taobao and i also need to learn English, so i can only install the software.<img style="border-style: initial; border-color: initial;" title="Cool" src="http://www.italki.com/Scripts/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-cool.gif" alt="Cool" border="0" />. on ther other hand if your student/teacher from China, i advice you can use Taobao(Alibaba.com, Yahoo held it 40% stock), beacuse more 300 millions users in China. ^_^