Report Viewer Control Too Slow When Background Image Is Used?

I have already posted this question on the "reporting services" forum and received no responses, so i thought i'd give it a try here.

SQL server 2005 SP3, VS 2005, vb.net, RV control.

When i add a background image to the page header, body and page footer, The rendering takes about one second per page. Without the background images, it renders about 25-50 pages per second. My report is a statement print report and has about 1500 pages.

Since it is the same image on each page, why does the server need to send that image over and over again to the report viewer control?

In vb.net i have the Report Viewer control and i bring up a report in normal viewing mode. when i click on the print layout mode, or have that mode set up to be the default mode, It takes forever when i have a background image and virtually no time for the same report without the images. The images are gifs about 5 or 6k each. I have chosen to embed the image into the report.

How do i optimize the usage of background images so they do not interfere with the rendering speed? Or at least minimalize the slowdown.

[EDIT:] I have discovered that if i render it to PDF and open the PDF and page through the report, it is much much faster. In other words if i choose to render to 'printlayout', it is say 25 times slower than when i render it to default, and about 20 times slower then if i render it to PDF. And the PDF contains exact rendering for all pages, exactly the same rendering as the print layout mode generates.