Can the excessively limited "Recent Items" list be adjusted to include more document types?
Another way to try it is to set the recent items list to zero, so it shows nothing, ever. You can do this in Terminal.

In Terminal:

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0

Normally that's a 20. just set the default to zero and you shouldn't see anything in recent items.

For an application-specific change (for instance, Safari) use this command:

defaults write com.apple.safari NSRecentDocumentsLimit 0

Replace com.apple.safari with the proper wording for the app you wish to modify, like vlc or flipplayer or whatever.

To reset default values, type:

defaults delete com.apple.app_name NSRecentDocumentsLimit

to remove the application-specific setting, or 

defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSRecentDocumentsLimit 20 

to set the global value back to 20 (or whatever you want)