[mythtv] Database schema upgrade 1215 and 1216 causes loss of data

[mythtv at miwers.dk]

Hi,

I just took a look at ticket #5070 after having problems upgrading the 
database (duplicate key errors).
http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/5070

It seems that converting the columns from latin1 to utf8 causes loss of 
data, when the columns are first converted from varchar to varbinary and 
then back to varchar again.

When MySQL hits a special character during conversion from varbinary to 
varchar, it gives a "Warning (1366) Incorrect string value" and 
truncates the rest of the string.

Since we're talking loss of data here (program titles, recording titles 
and such), someone really should revert or fix that change, so nobody 
else looses data over this. (good thing there's a DB backup, but still...)

I made som tests and posted my results in the ticket.
Skipping the varchar to varbinary conversion, and instead convert 
directly from varchar (latin1) to varchar (utf8) worked fine for me 
without loss of data.

Is there a reason why it's converted to varbinary first?
It seems like an unnecessary step to me...

Cheers,
Miwer