suggestion for mplayer

FWIW, and I'm not a programmer so I can't actually help you as you're asking, but if, in the meantime, you'd like to see the time, just hit "I". I too realized MPlayer was rather minimal (having not used it before) and found that to be helpful. Hit it once to see the elapsed time, again to see the remaining time, and I think a third time shows another display (e.g. elapsed/total). Four disables it. It's no permanent solution but might prove helpful in your case.