what is the step to convert a db from latin1 to UTF8

[housy hou]

Hi mysql experts,

I have a old db in mysql 5.1, it is using latin1 as characterset.
but while developer using it, they sometimes do "set names utf8" at the beginning of
there sql scripts, now, i need to convert it to UTF8 as a default database characterset, and I also need convert all the tables to UTF8,they are latin1 as they created without specification. My question is , what is the best way?

I read some articles , some one said to mysqldump the database, the reimport again
after you change all latin1 to UTF8 in the dump file.
but someother articles said, you need do iconv to convert the whole encoding format of dump file before doing mysqlimport, I want to ask , is this iconv necessary?

I tried with and without iconv, iconv 's result seems not right at all???

Can some one give me a hint ?

Thanks a lot.