Conference subtitles. Ready for the archive.

Give every talk its own release decision

A conference archive is a collection of independent publishing decisions. One speaker may approve a public recording while another permits attendee-only access, and an audience question may need removing. Start with an inventory of sessions you own or are authorized to process. Record the permitted audience, translation scope and any hold before generating subtitles.

The PyCon US recording release is one example of an event making recording permission explicit. Your event needs its own confirmed permissions; another conference’s terms do not clear your footage. Include slides, embedded clips, music and audience contributions in the review. Keep unresolved sessions out of the publication queue rather than treating a microphone or event ticket as consent.

Polyglot prepares subtitle drafts locally on an Apple Silicon Mac. It does not caption the live conference, manage releases or publish an archive. This workflow begins with authorized recorded files after the event.

Find your way in Polyglot

Use one project per final talk. Files groups each session’s original and translations together. Select one source per session for a translation batch; keep speaker permissions and approval status in your separate handoff manifest.

Freeze the talk boundaries before creating subtitles

If a room recording contains several sessions, split and finish the individual talks in your video editor first. Remove breaks and material that will not be published, then give each final video a stable session and edit identifier. A timetable slot is useful context, but the actual exported file defines subtitle timing. Polyglot does not automatically separate a day-long recording into talks.

For example, use summit26-t07-v03 for the seventh talk’s third edit. Keep the title, speaker and duration alongside that identifier in your delivery list. If two rooms hosted talks at the same time, distinct session IDs prevent a plausible-looking subtitle file from being attached to the wrong video.

When an approved, correctly timed SRT already exists for that exact edit, import it into Polyglot for translation instead of making a fresh transcription. Preserve the reviewed source. A live-caption transcript or an SRT from the uncut room recording still needs checking against the final per-talk video before it becomes that source.

Review the words the programme cannot verify

For a new draft, import the final talk and create source subtitles. Give the reviewer the speaker’s approved name, session title and a short terminology list. W3C’s event guidance recommends giving captioners materials and explanations of specialist terms; the same preparation helps your post-event review. This is a human reference list, not a custom-vocabulary import feature in Polyglot.

In a fictional software talk, listen carefully to “cache invalidation,” a library version such as “3.12,” and a command pronounced letter by letter. The abstract may help resolve spelling, but it cannot prove what was actually said. Preserve qualifications such as “in our example” and “not supported yet.” Ask the speaker about an unclear passage instead of replacing it with a confident guess.

Check the introduction, microphone changes and final questions. W3C’s prerecorded-caption guidance includes necessary speaker context and meaningful sound, not only speech. Polyglot does not automatically label speakers or sound events. If a moderator speaks off camera or audience laughter explains a pause, review that context and use a compatible caption editor for additional cues or timing changes where needed. Subtitles do not replace accessible slides or descriptions of important visual information.

Approve the translation as a separate deliverable

Review the source wording before translating. Polyglot keeps source cue timing while translating the text locally; each language still needs a fluent reviewer who understands the subject. Verify technical names, negations, measurements and jokes in context. A speaker’s permission to publish a recording and a reviewer’s approval of a translation are different entries in the handoff.

Read the translated track with the final talk playing. Dense slides and longer translated sentences compete for attention. Revise wording with the reviewer or adjust timing and segmentation in a suitable finishing editor when necessary. Do not imply that one English approval certifies every language or that preserved timestamps guarantee comfortable reading.

Speech recognition supports 25 European languages; translation targets are separate. Media and text processing stay local. Model downloads and the app’s separate update, analytics and licensing connections are described in the privacy information. Plan model setup before relying on the Mac for the archive work.

Hand over a manifest with the subtitle files

Export the reviewed SRT for each approved language. Use the same session and edit identifier as the video, adding language and subtitle revision. Keep approvals, holds and destinations in a separate spreadsheet or document. Polyglot exports subtitles; the following fictional handoff note is an organizer-maintained record, not a screen or feature in the app.

For every session, include the matching media file, source subtitle revision, reviewed language files, reviewer, permission status and player destination. A file present in the folder is not automatically approved. Mark missing or held languages explicitly so the uploader does not substitute an unrelated track. Preserve the editable project and earlier exports outside the delivery folder.

Session: summit26-t07
Media:
  summit26-t07-v03.mp4
Source SRT:
  summit26-t07-v03.en-r02.srt
Dutch SRT:
  summit26-t07-v03.nl-r01.srt
EN: approved by reviewer A
NL: awaiting reviewer B
Rights: public archive cleared
Destination: archive entry t07
Delivery: EN ready; NL held

Accept the archive one player at a time

Confirm which subtitle format the archive player accepts before delivery. Polyglot exports SRT and WebVTT: select the required format in Export, rather than changing the extension. Plain output does not preserve advanced styling or positioning. Upload the file to the authorized archive workflow and check cue count, opening and closing timestamps, special characters and language labels in the actual player.

For every archive entry, compare the public session title and speaker with the manifest. Check the opening, a distinctive middle passage and the final question for wrong-file or edit mismatches, then review the complete track. Confirm the language menu, accents and punctuation, and check captions at a small player size with sound off. Make sure text does not cover essential slide content. These are proposed acceptance checks, not a claim that Polyglot has tested your archive.

Record the public destination and the approved revision only after the player check. If the video changes, hold the old tracks until they have been matched to the replacement. If one caption spelling changes, update the relevant language file and review affected translations. This leaves the next volunteer or editor a clear answer to which subtitles belong with which talk.

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