I would like to use the native decoder for a custom video player. The VideoView and MediaPlayer does not provide functionality that will support my requirements.
I am using FFMPEG (software decoder) right now, but I would prefer to use native hardware decoding if possible. Is there a way to do this through the NDK?
There isn't currently a public API available for accessing any native hardware and I believe the presence of such hardware isn't guaranteed. While you could go digging into the DSP capabilities of the ARM processors being used by some devices it wouldn't be portable to all Android devices.
I would recommend continuing your software approach for guaranteed support on all devices.