Motion Tracking...Text ONLY

Ok - I've cracked it

Summary: it appears that not only does the video clip have to be selected; the TLI must be positioned at the start of that clip.

Details: Several repeat tries had not met with success.  So I:

1) Started a new project, inserted a single (different clip) of a person walking across a bridge, created a Default Text,

     deleted that (but its in the Project Assets), started Motion Tracking, placed the box around the person, dragged

     the text from the Project Assets & the box immediately turned blue & the text was attached.  Could adjust size etc.

2) Started a new project, inserted just the clip of the mountain above the forrest & repeated test.  Worked.  Scratched head.

3) When I had originally used Default Text it started a few seconds into the video clip.  On deleteing that text clip I'd

    left the TLI where it was (you can see that on my screen shot) before selecting the video clip, Motion Tracking etc.

    Repeated same with TLI at start of video clip & Hey Presto - it worked.

    I could subsequently trim the front & back of the text clip to start & finish as wanted.

4) To prove the theory I repeated test (2) above but with the TLI a few seconds into the clip.  Failed.

QED.

Anyhow - I'll leave it up to the Original Poster to say whether this has answered his query.

Without seeing what you are doing, I don't know what you're doing wrong.

As you saw in the tutorial, when you drag the graphic or clip onto the yellow or blue box, it will lock onto it and follow the box around your video frame.

You don't drag the title to a track on your timeline. You drag it onto the blue of the object you've track with the Motion Tracking tool -- just as you would a graphic.

If you need a tutorial on the Motion Tracking tool, I have one on Muvipix.com. Just go to the Learning section on this page, in the web page's lower left corner.

*** The Muvipix.com Guides ***

I'm not sure what you mean when you say you do not want "a cute graphic to a commercial video." However you can easily add a title or text to a motion track.

To do this, however, you must create your title (or a title) BEFORE you begin your motion tracking -- then delete it from your timeline. (It will remain in your Project Assets panel. This is a trick I show in my Muvipix.com tutorial.)

Then create your motion track and, in the motion tracking workspace, drag the title from the Project Assets panel (which will be temporarily on the upper RIGHT of the interface) onto the track.