It was screen-based disappointment for the vast majority of Internet users who attempted to watch the winter solstice at Newgrange online yesterday morning.
"Buffering . . . Network problems . . . Connection to server has timed out . . ." These were the words which greeted many users when they tried to log on to the event at RTE's web address.
If you chose to watch the last solstice of the century on the web, then it is most likely that the key moment passed you by, as "net congestion" prevented the majority of users from connecting to the coverage from Newgrange, which was being streamed live by RTE Online.
According to Ms Brid Cannon, producer of RTE Online, the site was "completely oversubscribed". Those who did manage to access the footage on the Internet watched the same show as was being screened on RTE 1, using RealPlayer software.
Approximately 12,000 attempted connections a second to the RTE site created difficulties for many viewers but, according to RTE, a fortunate 50,000 Internet users were successful and managed to view the passage of light through the Newgrange chamber via the station's webcast.
The hour-long webcast consisted of a live feed from the television channel, which was sent through a switching centre and encoded for the webcast.
The result was a small time lag between the television and Internet versions, which followed a long time lag waiting for an Internet connection to be established in the first place.
In the final analysis, Irish web users would have been better opting for the traditional medium of television for this particular solstice. For those who failed to access the site yesterday morning, or indeed those who failed to make it out of their beds in time to watch the TV programme, the full version is still available on the website at the address below.
www.rte.ie/newgrange