Impact video subtitles. Keep every number in context.

Caption the finding, including its limits

A nonprofit report video may combine workshop footage, participant reflections and a narrator explaining annual results. “We recorded 120 visits” and “we supported 120 people” sound similar, but they describe different things. A caption that drops the unit can change the meaning even when the number is correct.

Polyglot can turn an authorized audio or video recording into timed text, help you review it beside playback, translate corrected text locally on an Apple Silicon Mac, and export SRT or WebVTT. For an impact video, keep a separate review sheet that connects each important spoken figure to its reporting period and approved evidence. This is a manual production check; Polyglot does not calculate impact or verify your data.

Freeze the reporting period and the video cut

Ask the reporting owner for the approved report or data summary, its version, the period it covers and any limitations that must remain visible. Identify whether a figure counts people, attendances, sessions, households or responses to one question. A cumulative total and a single-year result need different wording.

NCVO’s evaluation-report guidance separates what an organisation delivered from the changes it observed, and asks writers to distinguish evidence from interpretation. Apply that distinction when reviewing the recorded words: “attended,” “reported” and “achieved” are not interchangeable. Keep the reporting owner responsible for approving the claim.

Use the final public video export as the timing reference. If a revised chart or corrected narration changes the edit, review the captions against that new file. A subtitle track approved for last year’s video is a reference, not a ready-made track for this year’s report.

Keep a small, private claim-review sheet

For each consequential figure, note the video timecode, exact spoken wording, unit, reporting period and reference supplied by the reporting owner. Keep the denominator—the group a count or proportion refers to—beside the number. NCVO’s quantitative guidance recommends using the responses to the relevant question and reporting that base.

The fictional example below separates workshop visits from people and survey responses from all attendees. It also preserves “reported”: greater confidence is not the same measurement as demonstrated competence. The sheet belongs in your production records, not in the public subtitle text.

If the narration says “all participants” but the approved evidence only covers respondents, stop that claim’s approval and ask for a correction to the video. Do not silently make captions contradict the soundtrack to repair an inaccurate statement. After the owner resolves it, regenerate or edit the affected text and review every language version.

Fictional review sheet
Period: Jan–Dec 2025
Report: approved-v3
Video cut:
community-report-v4.mp4

00:18 — “120 workshop visits”
Unit: attendances, not people
Reference: activity table A

00:42 — “32 of 40 respondents
reported greater confidence”
Base: answers to question 4
Not: all workshop attendees
Not: measured competence
Reference: survey table B

Report review: pending
Playback review: pending

Review names, numbers and qualifications in playback

Correct the source-language draft before translating it. Listen to dates, programme names, units and number endings that can be confused, such as thirteen and thirty. Check that “up to,” “among respondents,” “estimated” and “not” have survived. Review a complete sentence across adjacent cues; a correct number can still mislead if its qualification disappears at a cut.

Compare visible charts and labels manually with the spoken wording and approved reference. Polyglot does not read chart values or verify a spreadsheet. If the picture uses a different period or unit, resolve that conflict with the reporting owner. Captions represent the audio; they cannot make inaccessible visual information available simply by transcribing unrelated narration.

Keep participant quotations faithful to the recording. An individual’s positive experience does not establish a result for everyone. Preserve any spoken uncertainty and avoid translating “helped” into a claim that the programme alone caused the outcome. Ask a fluent reviewer to check the full video context and terminology, including local decimal and thousands conventions.

Polyglot recognizes speech in 25 European languages; translation targets are a separate capability. Check support for the spoken language first, or import an accurate, authorized SRT or WebVTT when timed text already exists. Translation preserves source timing during processing, but longer wording still needs a reading-time check and any necessary explicit timing edits.

Separate evaluation participation from permission to publish

Use only recordings and supporting material you own or are authorized to process, translate and distribute. Confirm the intended audience for participant clips, names and translated quotations, including whether permission covers a public report video. NCVO’s reporting guidance calls for checking anonymity and consent before using quotations or case studies.

Local processing does not make a public export anonymous. A voice, location, chart label or combination of details may identify someone even when their name is absent from the captions. Have the responsible team resolve restricted material in the video and audio before subtitle approval. Removing words from a subtitle file does not remove them from the recording, and Polyglot is not a redaction or consent-management tool.

Keep identifiable evaluation records, private reviewer comments and access details out of public captions and downloadable transcripts. Share the internal review sheet only with authorised reviewers. Use the organisation’s own safeguarding, privacy and release process for the actual material.

Accept the video, track and report as one release

Export each reviewed language track with the exact video version and language in its filename. Upload the supported file through the receiving host’s caption controls. YouTube, for example, documents uploading subtitle files with timing. Polyglot exports separate files; it does not upload the video, replace a published report or burn captions into the picture.

Open the actual destination as the intended viewer. Watch the whole video with the selected track, checking the opening and closing cues, each claim on the review sheet, chart transitions and any edited participant clips. On a narrow screen, confirm captions remain readable and do not obscure the chart label that defines a figure. The receiving player controls caption styling and placement.

If the deliverable is an accessibility caption track, review speaker context and meaningful non-speech sounds as well as words. W3C treats automatic captions as a draft that needs accuracy checks. Use an editor that supports creating additional cues when required sounds have no existing cue. A translated dialogue track alone does not establish complete accessibility coverage.

Record the accepted video filename, track names, report version, destination and reviewer sign-off date. Replace a corrected release through the host’s own controls and repeat the viewer check; retain previous production files privately so you can identify what changed. Subtitle export success does not certify the report or its impact claims.

Polyglot requires Apple Silicon and macOS 14.4 or later. Media and text processing stay local. Requested downloads, user-controlled updates, default-on content-free analytics with an opt-out, and Pro licensing have separate network boundaries. New AI subtitle jobs use a seven-day trial and require Pro afterward; editing and exports remain free.

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