But a 2 inch screen is pretty tiny for video playback. Anyone who knows me knows that I collect a lot of photography crap, whether I need it or not. In the magical crap collection, I had a little slide viewer, rescued from a thrift shop in Binghamton. With a busted light though, it becomes pretty darned useless.

Now, like a genius, I cut the thing apart BEFORE taking pictures of it when it was whole. Of course, I can't seem to find an image of the model in question, but it looked something like the photo at left, with a feed tray on the right, and a collection tray on the left.

It occured to me that the screen itself, while being old and with poorly manufactured plastics for the lenses, would make a neat magnifying method for the little screen on the Sony. So I set to disassembly, and set the player in place carefully, as not to scratch the finish. (This is what the device SORT OF looked like, thanks again MS Paint)

Well, low and behold, it works! The screen fits right behind the interior lens, and you get a full view of the display when magnified. The only catch is that you have to have a direct view of the screen, or else you lose part of your image in distortion.

What got done
First of all, the slide viewer worked like this: You put a small stack of mounted slide negatives into the tray on the right hand side, and a little pusher got pulled out on the right -hand side. It would then push one of the slides underneath the viewing section, which makes up the little screen here. When you were done examining your slides majesty, you pulled the tab out again and pushed another slide into place, forcing the previous one into a little collection tray on the lefthand side.

Demolition: The sides and back of the viewer got Dremeled off, and there were some metal springs behind the screen that were removed. These areas were also padded and covered with thin adhesive foam for camera repairs, courtesy of Micro-Tools. This is key for keeping your player in clean shape, or at least resistant to scratches... the plastic this fellow was built out of is tough and brittle, so better to pad and protect. I drilled a hole in the base of the screen, and superglued a 1/4" 20 nut on the inside, which is the standard size for a tripod mount. The lenses, which there are two of, were filthy, so they got scrubbed.

I attached a small, adjustable tripod from my extensive crap collection, and voila! A little itty bitty TV screen. The tripod mount means I can attach anything to it, in particular a Flex or Gorilla-Pod style legset to it and hang it off of my stupid lamp stand, or the like. I plan on adding small speakers to it at some point soon.

For now, a neat little project, took me all of... 5 hours to complete I guess, cost of about $4 for the original donor unit, I reckon.

Side note, also neat -- if you align the player on the larger side of the screen, and leave the back open, you can PROJECT the image onto a dark wall! It works poorly, and is fuzzy, but with a little testing, you might get it just right and can watch on a bigger display.

OVERALL ADVICE
- Don't just buy one of these on eBay and wedge your PMP into it, risking scratching of screen and body. Do measurements first, check for evil metal springs, and confirm clearances before doing anything. I can't guarantee your PMP will fit all of these viewers, but it seems anything 2" diagonally or smaller should be okay.

- Pad the slots once you decided it will fit okay. This will ensure that the screen will stay put comfortably, and again, save it from scratching.

- If you are going to superglue a nut to the interior, cover the lens with blue masking tape, or better: remove it, while the glue dries. Apparently some white magic residue escapes and has etched my rear lens a bit, and stuck itself to a big fat fingerprint on the front element, neither of which will come off now, but do not greatly detract from the image, which is warped anyways due to the cheap acrylic lenses. Let it dry open for 24 hours to be safe, which should help you avoid this nonsense.

Have fun, try it out! Try to find a broken unit if you can to do this with, since working ones are still in demand by old people everywhere (no offense, old people. We still love you, and your slides).

Special thanks to Sifl and Olly, Sony, and ORVIS for their collapsing stick-like tripod.