I've not seen this convention before. The closest I've seen to a colour code is purple for podcasts; but then, the podcast icon is easier to differentiate

I haven't seen this either.
Its probably just their designers choice.

Not sure if I actually like it.
Should maybe have some text to identify the different fields like you say.

This "convention" is news to me too. Since I've noticed many other sites using various colored RSS icons to match their site's color scheme, I agree that using only color to signify various feeds isn't the best "convention".

No, I haven't seen this, though I have seen headphones for audio RSS feeds.

If anything, the video standard should be yellow to match standard A/V hook-ups, no? But as someone pointed out, the "convention" of late is to match the RSS icon colour to your own website, so even this wouldn't work.

I would think the convention will have to lean towards new or modified RSS icons (and I believe that is what will happen...)

~Graham

I have seen other sites change the color of feed icons, either to match color schemes (as Richard mentioned) or represent different feeds (as in the example in your post).

But I don't believe there is even an implicit convention that says specific colors represent a type of feed.

Agree that discoverable feeds are best. I am worried about a pattern that has every page containing a site-wide feed baked in. Seems to lose some of the context of receiving a feed for the content on the current page.

No - I think it's an attempt to get some 'order' to something through a simple design trick. It's a bold move but I'm not sure it'll catch on. Never seen it elsewhere.

I can't remember where but I'm sure I've seen the colours used somewhere else before, but in such a way that it was implicit what they were being used for (eg. the icon at the top of a list of videos was one colour, the icon at the comments was a different colour). Unless it becomes standard its risky to assume people will get it, and in this case as there's no title on mouseover people have to look in the status bar, which isn't meant to be part of navigation at all. I think different icons rather than different colours is a much better idea.

feeds are best. I am worried about a pattern that has every page containing a site-wide feed baked in.
Unless it becomes standard its risky to assume people will get it

Not sure I agree with most comments on here. The RSS icon is pretty distinctive and most people know what it means (or at least those of us in the industry do). Changing the colour to represent different feeds in itself isn't a necessarily a bad thing, however, on it's own it doesn't carry across the idea that one is for video and the other for audio. Perhaps a text description is what is needed.

AFAIK at the moment there is no standard icons for different types of RSS feeds. However the icon most people assume to be the RSS feed icon was not the original icon. It was Mozilla who created the Icon then IE, Outlook and Opera copied it. The most standard icon before that was an orange rectangle with either RSS or XML on it. I think nearly everyone agrees the current icon is nicer. I think people are hoping their modified icon will become the standard for video or audio RSS the same way Mozilla's did for standard RSS.

The orange icon is much better in my opinion. For one thing, it seems to me to fit in in many different color schemes.

I wasn't aware of this either.