some more good news. the new builds (all builds except for the one on the 1st post of this thread) can display the osd and progressbar, but not out of the box, at least for me.
i've downloaded
MSYS(2.8M), which is the Minimalist SYStem for mingw (minimalist gnu gcc compiler for win32), and it just sets up the unix paths correctly, such that mplayer is able to find the fonts (apperantly that's what caused it not to display the osd).
in my case, i had to copy the mplayer directory (the one with codecs.conf and other conf files in it) to <msysInstallDir>\1.0\bin\%USERPROFILE% and then mplayer will work correctly. the %USERPROFILE% (literally) directory is created after you run mplayer for the 1st time from inside MSYS.
2 tips:
1. the default config file had 5 configs inside it (vo, autosync, ao, quiet, framedrop), i disabled all but autosync, and this way the files play smoother on my pc.
2. the default terminal opened by msys is rxvt, which displayed the text with absurdly wide spaces between chars (prob a bug). you can change msys.bat and remove the font option for rxvt, or just rename rxvt.exe to something else, and sh.exe will be used instead in a normal text window.
cheers
[edit]
lol, there's a much simpler solution, not involving MSYS.
inside the directory of mplayer.exe, create a directory %USERPROFILE% (literally) and copy the mplayer directory (with the config files in it) into %USERPROFILE%. it's apperantly a bug with mplayer/win32 since %USERPROFILE% should have pointed to "c:\Documents and settings\<userID>" but it's somehow interpreted literally. tip #1 from above still applies.
another thing, you can create a shortcut to mplayer.exe on your desktop, and drag the files onto it, will be the same as dragging the files streight onto mplayer.exe. you can also put this shortcut inside the "Send to" directory, and this way play files directly. it's also working for a group of files, which are then played in a sequence (i.e. an mp3 album, or 2-cd-rip movie, etc).
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