diff --git a/src/main/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/InvocationBuilder.java b/src/main/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/InvocationBuilder.java
index 83ce63979..70737eeac 100644
--- a/src/main/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/InvocationBuilder.java
+++ b/src/main/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/InvocationBuilder.java
@@ -22,13 +22,8 @@
 import io.netty.util.concurrent.GenericFutureListener;
 
 import java.io.BufferedInputStream;
-import java.io.BufferedReader;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.InputStream;
-import java.io.InputStreamReader;
-import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
-import java.nio.ByteBuffer;
-import java.nio.charset.Charset;
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.Map;
 
@@ -249,9 +244,9 @@ public void operationComplete(Future<? super Void> future) throws Exception {
             // now we can start a new thread that reads from stdin and writes to the channel
             new Thread(new Runnable() {
 
-                private int read(BufferedReader reader) {
+                private int read(InputStream is, byte[] buf) {
                     try {
-                        return reader.read();
+                        return is.read(buf);
                     } catch (IOException e) {
                         throw new RuntimeException(e);
                     }
@@ -260,19 +255,13 @@ private int read(BufferedReader reader) {
                 @Override
                 public void run() {
 
-                    BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(stdin, Charset.forName("UTF-8")));
+                    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
 
-                    int read = -1;
-                    while ((read = read(reader)) != -1) {
-                        byte[] bytes = ByteBuffer.allocate(4).putInt(read).array();
-                        try {
-                            bytes = new String(bytes).getBytes("US-ASCII");
-                        } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
-                            throw new RuntimeException(e);
-                        }
-
-                        channel.writeAndFlush(Unpooled.copiedBuffer(bytes));
+                    int read;
+                    while ((read = read(stdin, buffer)) != -1) {
+                        channel.writeAndFlush(Unpooled.copiedBuffer(buffer, 0, read));
                     }
+
                 }
             }).start();
         }
diff --git a/src/test/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/exec/ExecStartCmdExecTest.java b/src/test/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/exec/ExecStartCmdExecTest.java
index e4ceedac7..6436cd5da 100644
--- a/src/test/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/exec/ExecStartCmdExecTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/com/github/dockerjava/netty/exec/ExecStartCmdExecTest.java
@@ -109,16 +109,16 @@ public void execStartAttachStdin() throws Exception {
 
         dockerClient.startContainerCmd(container.getId()).exec();
 
-        InputStream stdin = new ByteArrayInputStream("echo STDIN\n".getBytes());
+        InputStream stdin = new ByteArrayInputStream("STDIN\n".getBytes("UTF-8"));
 
         ByteArrayOutputStream stdout = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
 
         ExecCreateCmdResponse execCreateCmdResponse = dockerClient.execCreateCmd(container.getId())
-                .withAttachStdout(true).withAttachStdin(true).withCmd("/bin/sh").exec();
+                .withAttachStdout(true).withAttachStdin(true).withCmd("cat").exec();
         dockerClient.execStartCmd(execCreateCmdResponse.getId()).withDetach(false).withTty(true).withStdIn(stdin)
                 .exec(new ExecStartResultCallback(stdout, System.err)).awaitCompletion(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
 
-        assertEquals(stdout.toString(), "STDIN\n");
+        assertEquals(stdout.toString("UTF-8"), "STDIN\n");
     }
 
     @Test(groups = "ignoreInCircleCi")