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Cisco Telepresence is the best - also least affordable in terms of required bandwidth and setting up a special room, but it is awesome!

For a small number of sites, you might try SightSpeed, they can do 9-way conferencing. I like its quality for a PC-based system.

Google Videochat is horrible quality, but has the unique quality of being able to make it through almost any firewall when you use HTTPS access to your Gmail.

Mac iChat is good as well.

SightSpeed http://sightspeed.com/ has the best video quality, it's free, multi-platform, and can run it 24 hours/day. You can also set it for relatively low bandwidth (250~350 kbps) so you don't slow down other things and the quality is still very good.

Personally, I'm continuing to use ooVoo even though it's now "out of beta" and not free. First of all, most of my calls are 2 or 3 way, and for that it is free, but I like to be able to record calls and I really like to be able to add PSTN lines to my conferences when people aren't available on a computer. I haven't bought it yet (it still seems to be free), but it looks like it will cost $10/month which isn't bad and everyone I do 4 to 6 way calls to doesn't need a subscription. The real key here for me is how easy it is to use because I never have problems with getting my clients and business partners onto ooVoo. It's quick, it's easy, it works with Mac or PC (Linux seems missing).

There are other solutions, like Sightspeed, which has good quality video, and Gizmo, and Palbee, but at the end of the day, you get what you pay for and I'm willing to pay a small amount for a good product. Skype has better audio for PSTN calls and if you can do high-quality (ie you have a dual core Intel and a logitech camera), the video quality is excellent. I'm happy to pay a small amount for Skype (and I do).

So, look at these:
http://gizmo5.com/pc/
http://www.sightspeed.com/
http://www.oovoo.com/
http://www.palbee.com/
http://www.ivisit.com/
http://www.eyeballchat.com/
http://www.dwyco.citymax.com/
http://www.counterpath.com/
http://www.parachat.com/
http://www.marratech.com/e-meeting.html
http://vsee.com/product.html
http://www.orgoo.com/
http://vawkr.com/
http://www.hearme.com/ (audio/video doesn't synch very well here, this is a version of PalTalk for biz)
http://www.avchat.net/avchat2-about.php
http://www.avchat.net/avconference-about.php
http://flashpioneer.com/

While not widely known, http://sightspeed.com/ has a free service called SightSpeed TV that let's someone with a TV tuner card in their PC stream the program to anyone in the world using SightSpeed's video calling service. SightSpeed works with Macs, but I'm not sure if the SightSpeed TV service works with Macs that have tuner cards, though a Mac can definitely recieve a SightSpeed TV stream.

I'm glad that SightSpeed beat out Skype on this list. The video quality of SightSpeed is far superior. Works better on my mac as well.

Try using Sightspeed instead. It's free, you need to register accounts to get it to work.

http://www.sightspeed.com/

I've had more success with this than with iChat and AOL client, Skype works but the video good be better like you said, then I've tried MSN and aMSN which didn't work. At the end of the day two of our faculty found it easiest to use Sightspeed.

http://www.sightspeed.com/

PC and Mac. The interface is terrible but the video codec is by far the best thing out there. The problem I have with iChat and Skype is that though they may claim 30fps video, it feels like it's much less. When I'm using sightspeed, it feels like I'm seeing the other person on TV (natural motion and lip sync but admittedly snowier). I can't say the same for the codecs in ichat and skype; to me they are reminiscent of the the 'live' footage we saw during operation enduring freedom.

I've been very pleased with SightSpeed, which will support a small conference (up to 4 people) cross-platform (Mac/Windows) at 30 fps. One-to-one video chat is free to registered users, but organizing a conference requires SightSpeed Pro, which is US $5/month or US $50/year.

I've also been watching DimDim, an open source video conferencing startup. Their solution is still at the Alpha stage, so it is too early to see if it will be competitive. They are promising that it will be free, so it's worth keeping an eye on their site.

Take a look at Sightspeed.

From their website: "SightSpeed, Inc. is the leading provider of free and premium Internet video and voice communications services (VVoIP and VoIP). The SightSpeed community and software enable consumers and small businesses to make the best quality video and voice calls and to send video mail over the Internet. SightSpeed's award winning service turns a PC or Mac into an easy-to-use video phone to communicate with friends, family and colleagues around the world."

I've been using Sightspeed for quite a while now to talk with my girlfriend in Japan (I'm in the US) and I think the video quality is excellent. I haven't mesaured, but I'm pretty sure I get at least 20fps, and even if I make it full screen (on a 24'' widescreen LCD), the quality is still impressive. I'm using an iSight connected to an Intel MacMini, and my girlfriend has some generic Logitec webcam connected to her Windows laptop.

The free service has a 30 second limit on video mail, and only allows one-to-one conferencing.

If you want a free video phone that works great try SightSpeed. They have been consitantly ranked the best by PC Magazine and PC World.

A long, long time ago, a lot of people used Cu-SeeMe for Internet videoconferencing. Then it was no longer available for free, and the world of NAT (i.e. most people with broadband routers) blotted out most H.323 options.

You may remeber QVIX, which has now become SightSpeed, which has a solution for NAT. It is more "IM-like".