A method of adapting a playout schedule of a stream of media packets according to network and channel conditions includes (a) setting a playout schedule for a next packet i+1 of the stream upon receiving a current packet i; (b) computing a length of the current packet i based at least in part on a target playout schedule for the next packet i+1; (c) scaling packet i if necessary; (d) outputting packet i; and (e) updating the playout schedule for next packet i+1 based at least in part on the playout schedule and the length of current packet i.