Another question: assume the second case is the correct one, i.e. that the RSS file applies at the podcast level, rather than the episode level, i.e. there’s only one RSS file for the podcast regardless of number of episodes.
Suppose I upload a new episode every week. It seems, therefore, that at the same time I would need to upload an updated RSS file, and that that new RSS file would overlay/replace the previous one? The first time, the RSS file would have a reference only to episode 1. The next time, it would refer to episodes 1 and 2, etc. Thanks.
The easiest way to do this is to use blog software that has RSS/Atom feeds already written into the software.
For Blog entry 20080108
-upload the podcast.
-use the blog backend to autocreate your RSS feed for the blog entry.
-done.
To the question about an RSS entry having a single or multiple podcasts included, this is a design conceit of the publisher, you can do anything you want.
Further, say if you have a 6 part podcast series, you can also send out a seventh RSS entry that is a compendium of all six previous podcasts. And again, using blog software is the easiest way to go about this.
On your blog, you have a blogroll on the side, you can create a sub menu area to list just podcast entries, or create a link to a secondary blog entry list just for your podcasts inside your main blog to make it easier to categorize your blog entries. Further, most blog software allows the owner to add keywords to their blog entries, you can simply reserve the word “podcast” as a keyword for podcast blog entries, and then copy the keyword hotlink for “podcast” and use that as your index of podcasts.
Too many options to list, but those are very simple ways to go about getting podcasts sent out on RSS/Atom feeds.