Hi,

You could create a class that inherits from Zend_Db and there you can execute.
$db->query('SET NAMES utf8');
$db->query('SET CHARACTER SET utf8');

I my case the data are retrieved and saved correctly without supplying the character set.
I don't know if something is broken yet

The issue that I am having now is when I execute the following queries for Zend_Db_Adapter_Mysqli

if ($db instanceof Zend_Db_Adapter_Mysqli || $db instanceof Zend_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql) {
$db->query('SET NAMES utf8');
$db->query('SET CHARACTER SET utf8');
}

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 50331646 bytes) in C:\www\websweet.ca\websweet\library\Zend-1.5.1\Zend\Db\Statement\Mysqli.php on line 227

Slavi