[AchillesPunks]

Can anyone point me in the right direction what to change to bring up osd without playback pausing?

Well since you have a shield limited options, either need a usb keyboard so you could press the ‘I’ key to bring up ocd info, or in the Kodi addon repo>Program addons>key map editor allows you to reprogram remote keys to do certain functions such as bring up the ocd you could try? I have a shield but I have a Logitech harmony remote and it has a info button on it which brings up the ocd for me during playback.
Otherwise I’m not sure there’s a switch for that in the settings that works without you having the right key to press.

I wouldn't even be able to add a button in settings for this since I can not test.