Here are five ways to ensure you’re not stuck watching re-runs of The Vicar of Dibley this Christmas.

1. GET THE ULTIMATE TV GUIDE

The Radio Times might have been good enough to keep you abreast of all the top TV in the days when Channel 4 was considered exotic, but it simply doesn’t cut the mustard now there’s a zillion or two channels on the Sky schedules.

The immensly powerful DigiGuide, on the other hand, will make light work of sorting the unmissable gems from the Jamie Olivers. This Windows application contains listing from over 500 UK television channels, but tailors your listings depending on your particular TV set up (Sky, Freeview or terrestrial) and region, so that you only see the programmes you’ll actually be able to watch.

Shows can be searched for by programme name, genre or even the actors involved. Search for Gavin and Stacey, for example, and you’ll instantly be presented with the time and channel of the Christmas Day special, and all the re-runs of previous series being shown on the various satellite channels over the next few weeks. Shows can be stored as favourites, with desktop alerts every time the show’s about to start, or even SMS alerts to your mobile phone – which are free until the end of the year.

DigiGuide recommends programmes based on your personal tastes, which are established during the painless set-up routine. Not bothered about sport? Sling the slider to the left and the My TV recommendations will omit any mention of the Boxing Day footy. If that seems a bit broad brushstroke, the genre filters allow you to choose which specific sports or types of film you’re interested in, making it easy for cricket-loving horror fans to get a highly-personalised schedule.

DigiGuide costs £14.99 for a year’s subscription, but you can download the full Windows client for a 30-day trial, which will easily see you through the Christmas period.  

2. SET THE SKY+ FROM AFAR

There’s little more annoying than arriving at Gran’s on Boxing Day and realising you forgot to set the Sky+ for the cracking movie on Film Four. Thankfully, Sky+ has a fallback for the absent-minded. Remote Record allows you to set the PVR using an electronic programme guide (EPG) on the Sky website or on your smartphone – check the Sky website for a list of compatible handsets.

If you’re smartphone’s not on the list, you can still set your Sky+ to record a show via text message. Register your Sky account with the service  and type a text message in the following format, including the full stops: Programme title. Channel (name or number). DD/MM. HH:HH

For example: EastEnders. BBC1. 25/12. 20:00

Then send a text to 61759. We’ve heard that the text service can be a little patchy, so opt for the online or smartphone EPG if you can.

3. CATCH UP ON YOUR MOBILE

If you’d rather pluck your toenails out with a teaspoon than sit down with the family to watch Noel’s Christmas Presents, seek sanctuary with your mobile gadgets. The BBC iPlayer is now compatible with a number of mobile devices, allowing you to catch up with most of the TV shows broadcast on the Beeb’s various channels over the past week. 

Officially supported mobiles include the iPhone, Nokia N85 and N96, Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson C905. Some enterprising Symbian fans have found a way to gently hack the iPlayer to work on other S60 smartphones – click here for details.

Portable media players including the Creative Zen, Sony Walkman E and S Series, and various Archos devices are also iPlayer compatible, allowing you to load the device up with downloads for those arduous motorway slogs. Make sure you select the “For Media Player” option when downloading shows from the iPlayer website, then simply drag and drop the files on to your media player.

4. TAKE YOUR TV WITH YOU

What happens if you want to watch the Boxing Day clash between Stoke and Man Utd, but are heading off to see family who don’t have Sky? With a couple of handy set-top gadgets, you can take your TV with you.

Devices such as the Slingbox Pro and Sony’s Location Free attach to your TV’s set-top-box, and beam the signal over the internet to a laptop, smartphone or Sony PSP, wherever you may be (as long as you can get a decent internet connection at your destination, of course). See the current issue of PC Pro (with the main cover-line, Netbooks from £115) for an in-depth guide to setting up a Slingbox.

If it’s too late to run down the shops for dedicated hardware, software such as Orb MyTV and WebGuide, used in conjunction with a TV-tuner equipped PC, will allow you to stream live or recorded content over the internet. Alternatively, GoToMyPC will provide remote access to your PC from wherever you are in the world, allowing you to catch up on the latest iPlayer shows even if you’re in normally off-limits foreign climes over Christmas.

5.  SEEK OUT ALTERNATIVES

It’s all well and good having 13,505 channels on Sky and cable, but when most of them are showing round-the-clock re-runs of Frasier and Changing Rooms, it can still leave you yearning for a little variety.

Why not try a few of the more eclectic online alternatives? The recently-revamped Joost is getting into the Christmas spirit with the superb Stressed Eric Nativity, as wide selection of old Laurel and Hardy movies and not an X-Factor winner in sight with a wide selection of indie music videos.

The decidedly edgier Babelgum hosts a selection of indie films, live music performances from bands such as the Kaiser Chiefs and Dizzee Rascal, as well as some classic motorsport documentaries featuring Stirling Moss and James Hunt. You’ll need to download the dedicated player software to watch show, however.

The excellent Miro player, meanwhile, offers a bevy of videos from the NASA archives, a selection of classic clips from the Monty Python team and a quite frightening video of the singer Grace Jones.