1. A method of controlling an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) system by gestures on a remote control, comprising: (a) determining a number of fingers touching a screen of the remote control; (b) identifying at least one characteristic of action by the fingers; (c) mapping at least one identified characteristic of action by the fingers to a corresponding predefined gesture in a set of predefined gestures; and (d) based on the gesture mapped in (c), generating a corresponding control command to be sent to the IPTV system; wherein the control command includes at least one of a PAUSE command and a PLAY command; the PAUSE command includes a session initiation protocol message that comprises a reINVITE message or an INVITE message and session description protocol information for restarting a multicast media stream as a unicast stream; and the PLAY command includes a real-time streaming protocol PLAY message that includes information for starting or restarting a multicast media stream as a unicast stream that includes at least a uniform resource identifier indicating a desired stream and a session identification.