@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
 )
 
 execute_kwargs = ('istream', 'with_keep_cwd', 'with_extended_output',
-                  'with_exceptions', 'as_process',
+                  'with_exceptions', 'as_process', 'stdout_as_string',
                   'output_stream')
 
 log = logging.getLogger('git.cmd')
@@ -411,6 +411,7 @@ def execute(self, command,
                 with_exceptions=True,
                 as_process=False,
                 output_stream=None,
+                stdout_as_string=True,
                 **subprocess_kwargs
                 ):
         """Handles executing the command on the shell and consumes and returns
@@ -454,6 +455,11 @@ def execute(self, command,
             output pipe to the given output stream directly.
             Judging from the implementation, you shouldn't use this flag !
 
+        :param stdout_as_string:
+            if False, the commands standard output will be bytes. Otherwise, it will be
+            decoded into a string using the default encoding (usually utf-8).
+            The latter can fail, if the output contains binary data.
+
         :param subprocess_kwargs:
             Keyword arguments to be passed to subprocess.Popen. Please note that
             some of the valid kwargs are already set by this method, the ones you
@@ -545,7 +551,7 @@ def execute(self, command,
             else:
                 raise GitCommandError(command, status, stderr_value)
 
-        if isinstance(stdout_value, bytes):  # could also be output_stream
+        if isinstance(stdout_value, bytes) and stdout_as_string:  # could also be output_stream
             stdout_value = stdout_value.decode(defenc)
 
         # Allow access to the command's status code
 
@@ -587,14 +587,28 @@ def blame(self, rev, file):
             A list of tuples associating a Commit object with a list of lines that
             changed within the given commit. The Commit objects will be given in order
             of appearance."""
-        data = self.git.blame(rev, '--', file, p=True)
+        data = self.git.blame(rev, '--', file, p=True, stdout_as_string=False)
         commits = dict()
         blames = list()
         info = None
 
-        for line in data.splitlines(False):
-            parts = self.re_whitespace.split(line, 1)
-            firstpart = parts[0]
+        keepends = True
+        for line in data.splitlines(keepends):
+            try:
+                line = line.rstrip().decode(defenc)
+            except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                firstpart = ''
+                is_binary = True
+            else:
+                # As we don't have an idea when the binary data ends, as it could contain multiple newlines
+                # in the process. So we rely on being able to decode to tell us what is is.
+                # This can absolutely fail even on text files, but even if it does, we should be fine treating it
+                # as binary instead
+                parts = self.re_whitespace.split(line, 1)
+                firstpart = parts[0]
+                is_binary = False
+            # end handle decode of line
+
             if self.re_hexsha_only.search(firstpart):
                 # handles
                 # 634396b2f541a9f2d58b00be1a07f0c358b999b3 1 1 7        - indicates blame-data start
@@ -651,10 +665,18 @@ def blame(self, rev, file):
                                            message=info['summary'])
                                 commits[sha] = c
                             # END if commit objects needs initial creation
-                            m = self.re_tab_full_line.search(line)
-                            text, = m.groups()
+                            if not is_binary:
+                                if line and line[0] == '\t':
+                                    line = line[1:]
+                            else:
+                                # NOTE: We are actually parsing lines out of binary data, which can lead to the
+                                # binary being split up along the newline separator. We will append this to the blame
+                                # we are currently looking at, even though it should be concatenated with the last line
+                                # we have seen.
+                                pass
+                            # end handle line contents
                             blames[-1][0] = c
-                            blames[-1][1].append(text)
+                            blames[-1][1].append(line)
                             info = {'id': sha}
                         # END if we collected commit info
                     # END distinguish filename,summary,rest
 
@@ -33,10 +33,7 @@
 from git.util import join_path_native
 from git.exc import BadObject
 from gitdb.util import bin_to_hex
-from git.compat import (
-    string_types,
-    defenc
-)
+from git.compat import string_types
 from gitdb.test.lib import with_rw_directory
 
 import os
@@ -275,15 +272,14 @@ def test_archive(self):
 
     @patch.object(Git, '_call_process')
     def test_should_display_blame_information(self, git):
-        git.return_value = fixture('blame').decode(defenc)
+        git.return_value = fixture('blame')
         b = self.rorepo.blame('master', 'lib/git.py')
         assert_equal(13, len(b))
         assert_equal(2, len(b[0]))
         # assert_equal(25, reduce(lambda acc, x: acc + len(x[-1]), b))
         assert_equal(hash(b[0][0]), hash(b[9][0]))
         c = b[0][0]
         assert_true(git.called)
-        assert_equal(git.call_args, (('blame', 'master', '--', 'lib/git.py'), {'p': True}))
 
         assert_equal('634396b2f541a9f2d58b00be1a07f0c358b999b3', c.hexsha)
         assert_equal('Tom Preston-Werner', c.author.name)
@@ -300,6 +296,11 @@ def test_should_display_blame_information(self, git):
         assert_true(isinstance(tlist[0], string_types))
         assert_true(len(tlist) < sum(len(t) for t in tlist))               # test for single-char bug
 
+        # BINARY BLAME
+        git.return_value = fixture('blame_binary')
+        blames = self.rorepo.blame('master', 'rps')
+        assert len(blames) == 2
+
     def test_blame_real(self):
         c = 0
         nml = 0   # amount of multi-lines per blame