The footage comes with a timecode on it. I was hoping this timecode matches the "real time" of how things happened.
IF it was recorded DF. You can usually tell by the separators in the code reader in software: 00;00;00;00 for DF; 00:00:00:00 for NDF. Colons or semi-colons.
From what Jim S said, it seems like 29.97fps footage could come with either DF or NDF timecode? (The footage came from external source so I don't know how the camera was set.)
Correct. Depends on how the camera was set-up.
If the footage indeed came with NDF timecode, does that mean the timecode does NOT match the "real time"? In other words, if the interview was exactly 1 hour long, the timecode on the footage would indicate it's a few seconds shorter than one hour?
Correct. NDF is NOT real-time.
You might say "oh that's a tiny difference, it doesn't matter". But it really could matter in longer projects, or when we have people review footage and communicate their comments based on timecodes. So when I have hours of footage and I want to do a timecode burn, I would like to know which timecode is the "correct" one!
Correct again. It DOES matter if you need a reflection of real-time in your SEQUENCE.
If you're doing a time-code burn for purposes of logging or selection, make your burned TC mirror the source time-code. Then you shouldn't have any confusion.