I use SPMC on a Nvidia Shield TV; but these options in the GUI are so useful that perhaps they can be considered for the Kodi 17 build on the Shield:
Accelerate MPEG2 – HD & up (default), Always and Never
Accelerate MPEG4 – HD & up (default), Always and Never
Accelerate h264 – HD & up, Always (default) and Never
Accelerate hevc – HD & up, Always (default) and Never
and so on as per the picture.
For example, having software decode of mpeg2 solved one problem I was having with the hardware decoder on the shield: