In the world of television we frequently deal with converting shows from non-drop frame timecode to drop frame time code, or vice versa.  It’s easy to change a Pro Tools session from NDF to DFTC in the session setup window.  But when you make that change, things are shifted by 3 seconds and 18 frames.  How can we keep things in proper sync relative to the start of program at hour 1?
It turns out that getting things lined back up after making the NDF-to-DFTC change is quite simple.  Here’s the workflow.

Here’s a session that’s currently in drop-frame timecode.  Notice that the cursor is currently precisely at hour 1.

Now let’s take a look at what happens when we simply change the session time code rate to NDF.

As you can see, our content now starts 3 seconds and 18 frames early.  An important point to note is that no audio has actually moved at all; the only thing that has changed is how Pro Tools is counting the frames from the beginning of the session.  The audio hasn’t shifted on the timeline.  Instead, the timeline has shifted underneath the audio.

Ultimately all that matters is that our audio no longer starts on the hour, and that’s bad.  How do we fix this?  Simple.  Just go to the Setup Menu and choose “Current Timecode Position”

On the screen that pops up, simply type in 01:00:00:00

Now your session is properly adjusted, with the audio starting precisely at the hour in non-drop timecode instead of drop-frame!

This exact same process also works in the opposite direction (going from NDF to DFTC).