You get waterproof digital cameras, so why not waterproof digital camcorders? That's exactly what Sanyo has done with the launch of the Sanyo Xacti E1, what it is claiming is the world's first waterproof camcorder.

Going on sale shortly, the $500 camcorder will have a depth of around 1.5m (5ft) for an hour at a time making it ideal for the summer in the pool.

The model, which measures 2.8 x 4.4 x 1.6in (W x H x D) and weighs 8.3-ounces, shoots in standard definition H.264 MPEG4 video onto an SD or SDHC memory card, and compresses it so you can fit 10 hours of 640 x 480 video at 30 frames per second on an 8GB card.

It can also take 6-megapixel JPEG stills which you can snap while recording video and features a 2.5-inch LCD colour display that promises to work in sunlight and flips out and rotates for easy viewing.

Other features include a 5x optical zoom, the now must have Anti-shake digital image stabiliser, a Digital Red-eye reduction function that says it will automatically reduce red-eye from images and comes in a choice of Blue, Yellow or White.