XML export and character encoding issues

I am tasked with converting a bunch of wordpress content to content in a custom application. Custom application’s DB uses UTF-8, while wordpress uses ISO. I have to parse these with a php script anyway so my plan, to keep data size manageable, was to export the xml file for different categories, and run it through my script. However, when I look at the xml file, making sure the encoding of the browser is set to ISO, there are strange  characters and the like in certain spots in the content. Why is just a basic wordpress export causing these encoding issues?