You can change encoding of an existing repository location. This encoding will 
  be used to translate file paths and commit messages from the client encoding 
  to the server encoding and vice versa. The encoding does not affect the contents 
  of file. You may use the editor encoding (available from the
  
   General > Content Types preference page)
  or resource encodings (available from the Properties > Resource 
  page of resources) to configure the Workbench to use the proper file encodings.
  General > Content Types preference page)
  or resource encodings (available from the Properties > Resource 
  page of resources) to configure the Workbench to use the proper file encodings.
To change the server encoding of a CVS repository location:
 CVS Repository Exploring perspective or add the
  CVS Repository Exploring perspective or add the
  
   CVS Repositories view to the current perspective.
  CVS Repositories view to the current perspective.
Team programming with CVS
CVS Repositories