pixeldrain does not do compression as far as I'm aware. the torrents I've seen are the same size of 2.56gb. some sites might show a lower number like 2.38GB because they count bytes differently where 1GB=1024MB instead of 1000MB. Windows does this as well so the file will show up as 2.38GB in the Windows file browser
Every video I've uploaded to PD ends up being a smaller size than what the original file size is. It has to be compression.
not my experience at all. I just uploaded a file and downloaded it as a test and it was the same size
the sites show 2.39 because they are using 1GB=1024MB, but if you open it up in Tixati they will show up as 2.56 because Tixati uses 1GB=1000MB, as does pixeldrain apparently.
I didn't realize that Mike doesn't do high bitrate uploads anymore, that's a shame but not surprising that they would cheap out on storage costs.