utf 8 - mysql charset latin1 into utf-8 conversion issue -

my client's web app has large database millions of records. table's encoding latin1.

when fetch text field holds huge data , mail string strange haracter issue comes. such when recieve email spaces converted character Â. not premissible change db encoding. tried following php function no outcome ;(

$msg = mb_convert_encoding($msg, "utf-8", "latin1"); 

please help

i check encoding php thinks is

echo mb_detect_encoding($str); 

and do

iconv("detectedencoding", "utf-8", $str); 

or if iconv not installed, check if encoding right in solution. ;)