Sanyo this morning upgraded its Xacti camcorders with the North American version of the E2. This second generation of the company's hardened camera improves the recording performance and will capture 640x480 H.264 video at up to 60 frames per second and snaps up to eight-megapixel still shots, including at up to five continuous frames per second. It also brings live face detection and a specialized underwater mode that adjusts the colors to avoid some of the tinting that occurs in pool or shallow dives.

The pocketable video device continues to promise complete protection against water for as long as an hour at a depth of five feet; a 5X zoom lens is complemented by digital image stabilization. Sanyo supports SDHC storage to carry as much as eight hours of video on an 8GB card.

The E2 should be available as of today in blue and white color trims and sells for $400; Adobe's Premiere Elements 4 is included to help create full movies, though the video format is natively supported by iMovie and is quickly converted for iPods and other devices that support H.264.