I could easily charge $1+ for this, but this is a special gift to you, and perhaps it will one day become a built-in feature for Blender. I hope it helps you record some great performances and inspires you to make more. I have some other paid add-ons that you may find useful when the time is right. 

I wanted a way to automatically stop playback / recording so that I could focus on my animation capture (whether with mouse input auto-keying, interacting with rigid body physics objects, or motion capture with Kinect). This helps prevent my rigid body physics cache from getting destroyed by Blender's default auto looping of playback, and also prevents earlier keyframes from being overwritten by the default looping. It takes a lot of the stress away and saves time.

Currently my other two add-ons are "Countdown Record + Auto Stop" and "Camera Flow Pro". You can find these in my blender market store. Countdown Record + Auto Stop is a VERY helpful tool for auto-keying / mouse input puppeteering, motion capture, and even rigid body physics work.