The TiVo Series 1 DVR, first introduced in 1999, is about to meet its end. TiVo has recently been emailing customers to notify them that the Philips-manufactured box will be unable to load any new programming information as of September 29th.

The device was last manufactured in 2002, but there are still 3,200 Series 1 TiVos in active use according to the company. You've got to figure that a fair number of those people have had to replace the internal hard drive once or twice over the years. Maybe you or someone you know has one in a basement or hooked up to a non-primary TV somewhere. This thing hails from the standard definition era, remember.

In exchange for the bad news, those loyal customers will be getting a $75 prepaid Visa gift card; hopefully that'll help make the news that "lifetime" service doesn't actually mean lifetime a little easier to accept. A discount on a modern TiVo box might've been a better token of appreciation, but oh well. TiVo says Series 1 DVRs will make a "last call" to the company's servers on September 15th to pull down one final guide update with two weeks of programming data. After the September 29th cutoff, the boxes will technically continue to function, but does scheduling recordings (or even flipping between channels) without any guide data sound like a worthwhile endeavor? It's okay to let go sometimes. "They've had a great run and we're truly sorry to see them go," TiVo said in its email to customers.