If you are just using it for reference for "rotomation",
(the act of animating your object to mimic 2d footage using said footage as a direct reference)
..which it sounds like you are doing, you could just map your video onto a plane, and just animate your object in front of that.
Emo has a great point with using Live, as that will help you also setup your camera/lens configuration & animation at the same time as well, so....
That is what I LOVE about Maya, is that there are a zillion ways to do everything
Good luck!
Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com