I have recently been involved in a number of films where the camera original has been shot at 24fps and subsequent post production has followed the Lightworks/Avid/DAR/AudioFile/ScreenSound path. If the PAL television standard (25fps 50Hz timebase) has been employed on the picture side and the sound synching has been of the mute neg telecine/clone DAT nature, complete and utter disaster has ensued with profound implications for the post production budget.
The reason for this is that Lightworks/Avid cannot cope with rushes that have been transferred at 24fps (a telecine process where two extra television fields per second are added to the picture). The mute video rushes are therefore transferred from negative at 25fps thereby speeding up the picture by 4%. Of course, the location sound can be speeded up by the same increment, synchronised via the clapper boards and simultaneously laid across to the mute 25fps rushes and to a clone DAT bearing the same timecode. All will appear well. However when the Avid/Lightworks spits out a 24fps copy of the digital cut with the EDLs required for autoconforming, the clone DATs will neither be in sync with the cutting copy nor will they be at the correct pitch.
You could of course revert to the original location material, assuming that it has been shot on a time code format. However the EDL timecode and the location tape timecode will now no longer match unless some form of 'Digislating' was employed on location and these codes separately logged to provide the audio EDL. The latter method is notoriously inaccurate.
So if you are intending to shoot a film at 24fps and employ non-linear picture and sound techniques the only real way to do it is to use the NTSC television standard. Now at this point a certain amount of confusion is bound to occur. "Hang on!", I hear you protest, "NTSC runs at 29.97fps doesn't it?" Well the answer is yes, but only as far as television is concerned. In film terms it runs at 23.96fps which is as near dammit right. I'm sure someone like Colin Broad who really comprehends these matters could explain it better but this is how I understand it. Anyway it works and PAL doesn't. As far as I am concerned this is what is important.
There is one other way, currently a bit iffy, to cut non-linear using the PAL standard. The 24fps negative is transferred to video at 25fps and loaded into the Avid/Lightworks. The rushes are then slowed down within the Lightworks/Avid to their original speed ie 24fps. The location sound is fed in (at the highest possible resolution) to the Lightworks/Avid and synched up within the system. The cut proceeds and a 24fps copy bearing 25fps timecode is spat out onto video. Now this is the iffy part. Manufacturers of hard disk equipment have been working on 'Open Media Framework' or OMF for some time now. Basically this allows one hard disk systems to read and manipulate sound/picture files produced on another. How well it works at the moment is a matter of debate.
Anyway the theory would be that the Avid/Lightworks would spit out its 24fps cutting copy bearing 25fps timecode and produce the sound files (all in sync at the correct pitch in cutting form with built in extensions) on a removable hard drive or magneto optical disk. This could in theory be loaded onto the hard disk audio system and the tarting up of the dialogues could begin. Obviously since these files are at correct speed and pitch, any location audio subsequently loaded onto the system would match.
Since I am no expert in these matters I would invite manufacturers of hard disk picture and sound systems to comment on these issues and hopefully come up with some better answers.