The Nokia 5800 is a great smartphone when it comes to media use, and not simply because of the large memory for storing music and films. The widescreen display also makes it perfect for movie playback, but transferring your film clips or DVDs to your Nokia 5800 can seem like a daunting task. It’s not that difficult, however, and we’ve put together this guide to show you how.

The most time consuming things about getting DVDs onto your Nokia 5800 is actually converting the DVD into a digital file that can be stored on your PC. This isn’t actually a tricky task – but you will require some third party software. Once you have your movies on your PC itself, you’ll be able to convert and transfer regular movie files – from DivX to WMV – using the Nokia PC Suite.

Unfortunately, there aren’t that many programs available from well known software companies that let you rip DVDs, and unlike CDs, the functionality isn’t built into Windows Media Player. We prefer Magic DVD Ripper the best. You’ll only get the opportunity to copy five DVDs from the trial version, but it couldn’t be easier to use, and unlike some trial versions, there’s no reduction in image quality or any logos across your movie.

The full version isn’t cheap, at $35, but it does offer exactly the same easy functionality. That said, if you are paying, it may be worth opting for a full DVD creation suite, such as Roxio Creator 2010 Pro, which also lets you burn DVDs and CDs, edit photographs, and a lot more besides for a reasonable £42.

Once you’ve copied your DVDs to your PC, or you’ve decided on existing films to put on your Nokia 5800, connect your phone and run Nokia PC Suite. Click on the Transfer Videos icon, which will open the Nokia Video Manger. This is a simple and intuitive piece of software for converting video files. Click on the arrow to the bottom right to continue.

You’ll then be asked to select a My Video Collection folder – this is a folder for your converted videos. It makes sense to store your movies here as well as on your phone, in case you make any changes, or you update your phone. Create a folder to put the films in, and place it somewhere easy to find, such as on your desktop.

You’ll then be asked to define the folder with your videos in. Select the folder you’ve copied your movie to, or an existing video folder on your PC, and click the OK button at the bottom.

Your PC will then scan this folder, along with the phone. If there are already videos on your Nokia 5800, the software will ask you if you want to copy them to your PC – again it makes sense to do so in case anything happens to your phone.

It’s then just a simple case of clicking the video you want to convert, and pressing one of the icons at the bottom right of the software. Click Transfer to Phone and Copy to My Video Collection. It takes a fair while to convert files – especially if you’ve selected a lot of them – so it makes sense to start at the beginning of the day or when you go to bed, and leave your PC to convert the files as you get on with working or sleeping.

Check out the gallery below to see videos being copied to our Nokia smartphone: