Yes, you may call vlc with the remote control interface by: "vlc --intf rc ..." and then you can control a little bit with command-line commands such as stop, play, pause etc. simply to type in your text-terminal.
You may also call vlc without any interface by "vlc --intf dummy ...". Then you may stop vlc by the "kill" command in a shell or in a script (usable by by the cron- or at-daemon).
You may also use the script "vlclauncher.sh" that can be found the package freerecord:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=401351
and which allows you to start vlc such that it will stops a given time later by:
vlclauncher.sh "vlc --intf dummy blabla-options" XX:XX
where XX:XX is your end time to kill vlc.