[TYPO3-english] Exporting 4.4.15 database

[George Brooks]

A remote host has a site using version 4.4.15. As a consultant I want to create a sandbox away from the remote host.  Downloads of phpmyadmin dumps of the database have been unsuccessful (character set conflicts, unescaped text halting import). Shell cannot access the database.

The localization manager I10nmgr suggests using version 3.4.50 for version 4.  Searching for that manager finds 3.3.9, a beta version. Because this is not my site I am not comfortable installing an extension, especially a beta version.

What other alternatives are available for obtaining a usable copy of the data?