Your guide to cancelling cable and streaming TV online


It's time to kill your cable box and cut the cord, freeing yourself up for better, cheaper alternatives in live TV streaming services. To get more news about octastream, you can visit octastream.info official website.

For decades, cable television was the best way to get quality shows geared toward specialized audiences. Today, that's what some of the best streaming services do, while cable is more like a lumbering dinosaur, slowly laying waste to consumers' wallets.

Cable TV still has some great shows, but you no longer need to pay through the nose to get them — not when you can cut the cord.

Here's what you'll need to know about life after cable TV. Tom's Guide will tell you what kind of hardware you'll need, where you can find your favorite shows and roughly how much you should expect to spend.
If you're currently on the phone canceling your cable subscription, or in the store to pick up cord-cutting gear, here are the bare-bones necessities you need to consider. The rest of the article goes into more detail about each point:

Invest in an HD antenna. Your local broadcast networks are very expensive to carry, so cut the middle man while you cut the cord. The best TV antennas will let you watch all of your favorite network TV stations live, in high definition, with no cost beyond the antenna itself.
Consider cable TV alternatives. The best cable TV alternatives are perfect for reluctant cord-cutters. They're almost the same thing as having a traditional cable or satellite subscription — but at a lower price. Sling TV and Philo are the cheapest.
Pick the best streaming device for your needs. Every streaming device has pros and cons. Consider whether you need 4K resolution, fancy remote controls, or the ability to play games. (The Roku Streaming Stick 4K is our current top pick.)
Check your smart TV. Most smart TVs offer dozens of streaming services, so you may not need any additional hardware at all.
Subscribe to the best streaming services. Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu and Amazon Video provide vast libraries of classic movies and TV, as well as lots of original content. Peacock, Paramount Plus and AMC Plus are decent options too.
Find a way to stream your own content. With the right library, DVD-ripper and hardware, you can DIY. Plex is the one of the best programs for the job, and most of its features are free.
Once you send your cable box back to the company that was merely renting it out, you'll need a way to funnel streaming content directly to your TV. The good news is that this process is both easy and inexpensive, and you may even own the necessary components already.

The first thing you may want to consider is an HD antenna. This doesn't provide a way to watch streaming videos, but if you want to watch live TV, it's the cheapest and simplest solution. You may remember having rabbit ears on your hand-me-down TV as a kid — an HD antenna is basically the modern-day version of that. You hook the device into your TV, put it somewhere near a window and watch as the free channels roll in.

This process is how you get local broadcast stations and, as such, is ideal for news and sports. You can get a good HD antenna for less than $40, and like with a regular antenna, there are no subscription fees. However, your channel selection depends a lot on where you live, as well as your line of sight to the broadcast location.

A nonamplified antenna picks up signals across a range of about 20 miles and is ideal for people in urban areas, who tend to live close to broadcast towers. Tom's Guide routinely tests HD antennas, and we post the results on our best antennas page. We also have a primer on how to get better reception with your TV antenna.