Disclosed is a buffer-based adaptive media playout method in a receiver side of a network media streaming system. The method includes: calculating a playout interval for playing out a current j-th frame (where j is a natural number) of a received media stream; and playing out the current j-th frame after the calculated playout interval has elapsed from the reception of the current j-th frame. The calculation of the playout interval for playing out the current j-th frame of the received media stream includes: calculating a buffer level of a (j+w)-th frame (where w is a natural number); estimating a playout pause or a playout skip on the basis of the calculated buffer level; and calculating the playout interval for playing out the current j-th frame for the predicted one of the playout pause and the playout skip. According to the above-mentioned structure, it is possible to reduce the amount of temporal distortion, such as the RMSE value of playout discontinuity due to delay or jitter, as compared to the buffer-threshold-based media playout techniques according to the related art.