The transformation of television signals through the air around us from analogue to digital sounds rather complex and scientific, but it's all rather simple really.
Put it this way - if you have Sky or a Freeview set-top box and the appropriate aerial already hooked up to the telly in the living room then you will happily be watching whatever takes your televisual fancy on the first day of October.
If you don't then the only thing you'll be looking at on your telly is the vase aunty gave you last Christmas.
Or a permanent scene from Frozen Planet ... like a great big snowstorm that goes on for ever and ever.
At least until the set has been introduced to Sky or has a Freeview compatible box, linked to a compatible UHF aerial or dish, attached.
So why is it being introduced?
Basically, to free up the analogue spectrum which is currently the domain of television signals, as it has been since June 1960 when television arrived in New Zealand. Which in turn creates more space for advancing mobile telecommunications and data services.
Digital signals also carry more information, which means better picture and sound quality.
And you get some extra channels.
On September 30 the analogue plug will be pulled in Hawke's Bay and the West Coast. We are the first regions to go fully digital, but don't get the idea that's also the day when digital kicks in.
It's been around for quite a while.
If you've had Sky for a few years then you've been watching digital.
There are a couple of things to be aware of here:
If you've got a portable telly up in the bedroom, or out in the garage, it will need its own Freeview converter box.
And even if your telly is six or seven years old (one of those great crate-sized devices) then it will still work just fine, if it has Sky or Freeview hooked into it, and there's either a dish or a UHF aerial attached.
Time is on your side at this stage, but hasn't the year rushed by so far?
Soon be spring, and if you want to watch the final stages of the national provincial rugby championship you need to be like a good set of front row forwards ... be prepared.