TiVo is dead – or is it?

TiVo, the once revolutionary TV recording system, is dead in New Zealand.

TiVo was laid to rest in New Zealand and Australia on October 31 after the licensee, Hybrid Television Services, reached the end of its licence, a TiVo Corporation spokeswoman said.

She would not say why the licence was not renewed or how many customers were affected.

TiVo allowed viewers to record programmes automatically on multiple channels, save and watch items on demand, and pause, rewind or fast forward live television. It also recognised your favourite programmes.

TiVo customer Denis Wadsworth of New Plymouth, who has collected four TiVos over the years, said he was disappointed with the removal of the service.

Wadsworth said TiVo brought in on-demand TV before such services as MySky and MyFreeview were invented.

‘‘When TiVos first came out it was well before Netflix or anything like that,’’ he said. ‘‘It was all on-demand movies on the internet.

‘‘It doesn’t get the normal TV listing; it gets its own listing so without that it’s basically bricked.’’

He said they can still be operated manually as a recorder as long as they’re not turned off, and there were still a lot of them around.

‘‘It’s a real shame that they’re grinding to a halt. They’re just going to become landfill.’’

However, there may still be hope for TiVos, with a number of technicians working on backdoor methods to keep them running.

Wadsworth said there was a component and software people could use to keep them running, but he is waiting until it’s a bit more settled to install it himself.

‘‘The picture quality that comes out of them is absolutely superb.’’

A spokeswoman from Spark, which used to own part of TiVo, said Spark had not operated TiVo since 2012.

‘‘However, 31 October still marked the end of an era for those Spark customers who have continued to use their TiVo box, so we’ve been in communication with Hybrid Television Services to ensure that these customers were given plenty of notice of the change and were aware of the impact of the termination of the service on Tuesday,’’ she said.

On their website, Hybrid Television Services said they had been delighted to provide service to New Zealand and Australia but all good things must come to an end.

‘‘We are sad to report that we have reached the end of our TiVo license and the TiVo Service closed in New Zealand and Australia on 31 October 2017,’’ it said.

Hybrid does not recommend using the device beyond the life of the TiVo service. ‘‘The TiVo device will not be supported from a technical perspective after 31 October 2017, and there will be no customer support nor authorised repair facilities available to customers after that date.’’