Facebook photos on your Media Center - Photato

I heard about the Photato Media Center plug-in awhile ago now, but I stumbled on their website again today, so I thought I’d install the plug-in and give it a look.

What is Photato?

If you are an avid Facebook fan and use it for sharing and viewing photos then Photato is a 'must have'. Built using the Facebook Platform and designed to run within Microsoft Windows 7 and Vista Media Center, Photato will enable you to view and interact with your Facebook photos through your TV.

Features

• View all your Facebook photos
• Browse your own and your friends' albums
• Flick through tagged photos
• Enjoy a full-screen slideshow
• Designed for your TV
• Runs in Windows 7/Vista Media Center

The first thing you notice about this plug-in during the Media Center setup is that the animations are great! The yellow post-it notes pan in and move around.

Media Center setup – Login to Facebook

Synchronizing with Facebook

Photato – Home menu

Friends photo albums

Selected friends photo album

Using the menu on the right hand side you can then start a slideshow of your friends photo album.

Slide show: it doesn’t seem to pan like the native Media Center slideshow, but the photos zoom in towards the viewer of the screen.

Back on the friends photo albums page you can also filter the photo albums using the options on the left:

• Modified Date
• Created Date
• Album Title
• No. of Photos

Photato is still in beta. I’m not sure if the development is still active or not? The plug-in did crash on me once whilst I was using it. However this plug-in is very good, especially if you are a Facebook addict and like to view your family and friends Facebook photo albums. Photato is visually stunning the animations are extremely well done.

I need to use Photato some more at home to really get a feel for it, but I am now wondering why I didn’t install this great Media Center plug-in before now?

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse , Media Center , Facebook , Photos , Photato