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We use google hangouts as our video conferencing tool. It's ok, nothing great I suppose. But I'm now wondering:

* what features would make these tools great? shitty?

* are we using a subpar vtc tool bc we don't know any better?

This is how video conferencing should work: I go to your page and generate a link. I send that link to participants. They open it, the video conference starts full-screen immediately. High resolution, no plugin downloads, no prompts, no "invites," nothing. No clutter on the screen at all. I don't need emojis or filters. If there are 4 participants, split the screen automatically into quadrants with each participant's video in one quadrant. None of that Hangouts auto-switching nonsense.

https://talky.io/ ?

Have you tried appear.in ? https://appear.in/ . It generates a link, and has pretty good resolution and no invites or anything, and I like their UI a lot.

Most of the other problems (high resolution and immediacy) are a function of bandwidth and internet quality more than anything else I think :(

I'm also working on a video conferencing software (for a different use case) and unfortunately we can't do away with the prompts because of security, but WebRTC (https://webrtc.org/) has done away with plugin downloads for everything but iOS (Apple, as usual, not inviting others into their walled garden).

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