Quote So, why does applying the stabilizer at default settings make the preview playback of the clip jerky??

Computationally very taxing as you have to decode to individual frame level, stabilize, display. A improved CPU will assist, but still choppy playback. Same for video speedup,......other corrections too. In such cases render preview will create smooth playback but often not worth the hassle as one knows produced file will typically be just fine.

Jeff

So, I guess there isn't an answer short of buying a super-computer.

Somewhat disappointing: I'd hoped it was just a matter of (my) ommission or technique. proDAD supplies a stabilizer to other editors (mercalli) which works fine in this situation, ie no preview playback problems. Since PD uses other proDAD filters (Adorage/Vitascene), Cyberlink should consider using a stabilizer from the same stable that works better in this situation than the one currently in use.

Uncheck Use enhanced stabilizer. You may find very little difference on most material. This behavior is addressed in the Help files.

I tried that before my initial post, using just the rotational camera shake item. The result wasn't jerky, but it didn't remove all the wobbles. So then I applied the enhanced stabilizer, per the UG, and that got me jerky video, big-time.

The help files has an entry for the video stabilizer, but it just (basically) says it's there.
The UG has more detail, but essentially the info was as JL indicated.

The point of my last post is that there is a motion stabilizer filter available from proDAD that doesn't have this sort of side effect, and it delivers stabilised motion in real time on a proxy/shadow file in normal preview play. It takes a setup cycle, and once going you dare not change the length of the clip the stability is applied to (even by using a transition) without an irritating advisory that the changed clip needed to be re-adjusted. But the essential item is that it's real time operation in preview is great: you can see what the effect will be in edit mode on the project file clip, with no special action in the preview.

I posted a feedback to this effect, but even if CB takes it up, it would be version 20 unless there's a policy of new features rolled out in an upgrade.

There are 3 ways I can think of to deal with this besides upgrading your hardware or waiting for a possible product update.

The first is what Jeff stated, which is to have PD pre-render the stabilized section. A variation of that is to use Range Selection then Produce Range and replace the stabilized section on the timeline with the produced version. Each of these removes the burden of trying to make the required computations in real time for previewing.

A third option would be to use an intermediate codec like MagicYUV, which is not encoded and therefore much easier for PD to work with, especially when making computationally-intensive edits. You have to convert the clip beforehand and the file size will be 10x larger than the original clip, but evrything will be much smoother when working with MagicYUV clip(s) inside PD.