An upstream error controller monitors a media stream at a location upstream from an associated set of receivers receiving the media stream. The upstream error controller sends out suppression notices for any media packets lost upstream causing the receivers to suppress sending lost packet notices. In another embodiment, a repair point joins a primary multicast group with multiple receivers for receiving a native media stream. The repair point also joins a second multicast group receiving multicast backup data for retransmitting or repairing the native media stream that does not include an associated set of receivers. In yet another embodiment, the upstream error controller is used in combination with a hybrid packet repair scheme for adaptively switching among unicast retransmission, multicast retransmission, and Forward Error Correction (FEC).