git and binary files

Hi,

I'm using git to keep track of directories full of jpegs and movies (19 GB .git directory, 5825 files, 18+ GB).

I now that this is also possible with rsync and friends, but I like to have full version control and history, so please no discussion about that.

The problem I'm facing is, that 'git status' is very very slow. They seem to read through every file in the directory tree. Is it possible to tell git to just use mtime/size information for an initial guess? I already tried to turn of rename detection with diff.renames=false, but still the problem remains.

Any hint? git version is 1.7.1.

Thanks,

Jan