i use encoding speed, MAX settings,

i then choose the size for the episode,

25-30 minutes 150MB - 200MB (Drama, comedy) i favour 180-183MB so 24 episodes can fit on DVD-5
25-30 Minutes 233MB             (Action, Sci-fi)
50      Minutes 350MB             (Any)

Sound 192 Kbps MP3 CBR (Never VBR on any occasion)

your 2nd question is a little vague?


what do you mean by content?, films, episodes, animation ?

as for codec settings, this is hit and miss, unless you know what your doing!

i will say this though,

700Mb            (Drama, comedy) Low motion 90 Mins (give or take)
1.4 GB            (Action)             Fast motion 90-120 Mins

if material is considerably over the 2 hour mark, or has huge amounts of Action then add another 700MB to above figures, I.E "Saving Private Ryan"
remember Scenes with Water and Fire (Smoke) are hard to compress I.E. "Waterworld"

ALL OF ABOVE is with MP3 Sound only, and done with DivX version 6.8 (divx in my opinion looks better then Xvid) i also am going for archive quality which is why i'm being generous amounts.

ALL OF ABOVE is talking about ASP Encoding only (Xvid, DivX) AVC Encoding is a different matter entirely,

hope i have helped,