Hi Randall,
Glad you mentioned this... it can't always be taken as a given -- especially with indy filmmakers -- that the timecode burn they provide will be at the same rate as the fps of the movie! (I just went through that actually, where I got a 29.97 burn on a 23.98 movie. I was going crazy for a minute there!)
So let's add that to the list...
• timecode burn at the same rate as the movie
But to answer your question, yes, provided you get a movie that fits the criteria above, Logic's frame rate setting won't influence sync. The key is to simply disregard Logic's timecode counter, with the one exception of jockeying the bits value to place pops.
Now... to be really really really really really picky about that aspect of things...
If Logic's frame rate is set to 30 fps, the duration of a single bit is going to be smaller than that of a bit @ 24 fps. The difference is pretty miniscule:
1 bit @ 30 fps = .4167 milliseconds (that's less than 1/2 millisecond)
1 bit @ 24 fps = .5208 milliseconds (a tiny bit more than 1/2 millisecond)
The difference is .1041 millisecond. Probably not enough to worry about.
Anyway, back to your question. Let's say that I was scoring a scene of a 23.98 fps movie and Logic was set to 24 fps, just so that Logic's counter would be in the ballpark.
Start time for this example is 01:20:00:00 according to the t/c burn. And let's say that I finagled with Logic's SMPTE view offset so that Logic's t/c counter exactly matched
at the beginning of the cue. Of course, at the end of the cue the t/c burn and Logic's t/c counter will no longer match. But that's OK because the basic principle is this: regardless of Logic's frame rate setting, that movie is going to play at its native frame rate. Logic's fps setting doesn't influence the playback speed of the movie. And since picture always plays back at its native speed, the picture's t/c burn becomes your absolute t/c reference.
I think I can say all of the above with certainty, per my tests (some described above, others I've done on my own) as well as the fact that on my current project, some of my Logic files were set to 24 and some to 29.97 with no sync errors reported by the editor.
