Inefficient escape codes.

Hello there,

This is my first post in the list. I have a deep low-level background on
computer programming, but I am totally newbie to sql databases. I am using
postgres because of its commercial license.

My problem is with storing large values. I have a database that stores large
ammounts of data (each row consisting of up to 5MB). After carefully reading
the Postgres 8.0 manual (the version I'm using), I was told that the best
option was to create a bytea field.

Large objects are out of the line here since we have lots of tables.

As I understand it, the client needs to put the data into the server using a
textual-based command. This makes the 5MB data grow up-to 5x, making it 25MB
in the worst case. (Example: 0x01 -> \\001).

My question is:

1) Is there any way for me to send the binary field directly without needing
escape codes?
2) Will this mean that the client actually wastes my network bandwidth
converting binary data to text? Or does the client transparently manage
this?

Thanks for any light on the subject,
Rodrigo