Now that the official HBO Now app is available for the ShieldTV I thought I would give it a try and it is terrible. It looks like 1080p but drops so many frames it is unwatchable. This is the only streaming app that does this and I have a 100mbps wired connection.
I see tons of similar complaints for other devices dating back to the beginning of 2015. Does the app work for anyone on ShieldTV? Is this a lost cause, is there a workaround, or will HBO ever fix this?
I have the same issue as you and everyone else. In fact except for kodi I find that playback stutters for all apps including netflix, I guess because Android doesn't do any sort of proper pulldown when playing 23.976 streams on a 60 fps display so it basically pauses the video stream all the time for the audio to catch up. Until apps switch the display to the content framerate like kodi does, the only solution is to manually switch to 23.97 video output in the HDMI settings. Thankfully most of the content I watch is film/series using this framerate in the first place, so it stays like this most of the time. It makes the Android TV interface choppy, but who cares as long as the videos play better :)
Have the same issue on my Shield. The issue is not severe, but it's still noticeable and it ruins the watching experience for me.
I also have HBO Now running on a Nexus Player and don't experience the same frame rate issue.