Before I begin ranting a little, positive things will come at the bottom post. One downside is that GSCI advertises with a 7 year warranty, this is ONLY for the optics and housing, NOT the tube itself.
Luckily we have a 3 year warranty in socialist Norway that we have on anything electronic you buy. The tube was bought through www.spyshop.no
This warranty information was not provided before the purchase, something that is really iffy if you want to do good business (www.spyshop.no). Also, before actually buying the tube I contacted both GSCI
and the supplier to find out what kind of tube would be provided with it. After no reply for weeks i decided to call GSCI, where the information I was given was "we supply a variety of tubes, amongst them photonics".
After putting in the order, I called them back where I got the same response..iffy. So I sent another email to them saying that I would have to withdraw the purchase unless they could provide me with the
information as to where the tube is from, this time I got a call the same day confirming that it was a "Katod tube".
Also, in the information provided to you there is nothing that says where the tube is from, GSCI creates their own nicknames for the tubes instead. Also, while shining a light inside the backside of the optics, it clearly says "GSCI" in circles around the tube, so possibly they have
even removed all information that could lead it to be traced to Katod. So now, im just waiting for the spec sheet that I can not share with you due to a strange soup of legal language in the document.
To GSCI: Provide correct information that is clearly visible to the purchaser, don't hide behind silly marketing schemes with 7 year warranty and small letters on 1 year tube warranty. Also, provide the purchaser with the tube information, DO NOT make up your own nicknames as to what type of tube it is, regardless of it being taboo to use Russian tubes.

https://imma.gr/l/73058x9008d

Test conditions, absolute darkness in a Norwegian fjord, light pollution from local farms at the other side of the fjord.
No moon.

Specifications for tube:

Katod - Still waiting for spec sheet, so type of tube unknown. To get this information I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement to obtain the specsheet, which I can not share. (Is this normal?)
In the "Brochure" from GSCI it states:

Generation type: Gen 3 ( Here they should have just put in the tube name )
Resolution: 65 minimum
SNR': 24 Minimum
FOM: 1560
Photo Response: 2140
Autogated: Yes
IIT Serial Number: xxxxxx ( just GSCI version of serial number )
Housing Serial Number: xxxxxx
Gain Type: Autogain ( This seems to be very practical, it does a good job )

So excluding what is said above, Im very impressed with the performance of the tube, the picture is crystal clear, with only 2 visible tiny black spots that is never noticable unless under bright conditions, and if you look for them very carefully.
I did a comparison with a XR5 tube from Special Forces in Norway that was 2 years old, with a milspec cost of 8000 euros. The performance was very identical. Also former specops and current ops in Norway tested the
PVS-14, all were impressed by the performance and clarity of it. So I think the taboo of Russian tubes can be put dead, especially performance wise..so far.

Videos

Total cost of the GSCI - PVS14 GA1+ (Katod) 4800 Euros including tax.

More videos coming. What are your thoughts? :)

Video

https://imageshack.com/a/img924/9337/VInYBc.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/2672/M2ccT6.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img923/5723/Dl3R6n.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img924/289/pQOQCy.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img921/6677/2buxz9.jpg
https://imageshack.com/a/img922/8826/yLP2s2.jpg

Thanks for the review. Not many GSCI reviews around there. Katod makes good performing tubes no doubt.

How do you think the view in terms of distortion is compared to the other unit you got to see? Same / nonexistant?

Glad to hear that ! Almost non-existent distortion, only in the outer edges as it normally is.
I think the GSCI optics play an important role there, which means they are of high quality.

For some reason I cannot open your videos. It just says they are not available, opens an empty OneDrive view

Strange, try now ? Thx for letting me know

Works now, thanks! Looks good to my eye too and indeed not much distortion on the edges. Btw, did the NDA prevent you from telling the specs or just prevent showing a copy of the actual paper? Of course would be interesting to hear the specs that tube has, but what the videos tells the min specs at least are true. Halos are maybe on the larger side, though they seem very dim which is great.

Edit: and to me that is the first instance of hearing of an NDA for specs. I don't think Katod even has such a policy, it's GSCI who doesn't want the specs known for some reason.

Thats a good point, I wonder why they would need that, or even want that ?

Its specified that they don't want the spec sheet to be shown to anyone. Strange since Katod has their specs very public on their website.
If the specs from the brochure differ from what is stated in a real factory spec sheet they would be in trouble.

Also people post Katod spec sheets publicly on the net too. Only thing regarding NV what I've bumped into is an end user certificate, but no NDA. Generally when you ask what tubes a vendor has they'll give out a bunch of spec sheet photos in return. I have never purchased a Katod tube, but given they are easily found around the net I suppose it's just the same, you get sheets and select which one you'd like to have.

My hunch is just that they don't want people to know the specs due to marketing tactics. Some companies don't provide sheets at all even for Gen3 systems so in that sense you are lucky you have the ability. Some do after the purchase but no NDA, like with Armasight. I can understand why they don't want to advertise Russian tubes as it just happens to have a negative connotation attached to it. Of course that just makes it worse as people aren't aware that they actually make good performing tubes, both Gen2+ and 3. I guess the awareness about Ekran FEP Gen3 tubes is a bit better than with Katod due to Armasight selling Ekran FEP Gen3 WP tubes.

Armasight, ATN, GSCI, and some others, have made up different spec levels and never mention what tube is found in which "level". And one "level" may have tubes from different manufacturers just depending on what spec tubes they (probably) happened to acquire at that time. Next batch may have something else inside.

I can understand that too. It kind of makes it easier for a "casual" customer (who probably doesn't even care about the manufacturer). Not sure how much there are such casual customers especially at this price range. Your's is pretty much top of the line if I understood it right so from that perspective I can't see a good reason to be secretive about the specs. If they are good then what's the problem? That's in the same price range that top of the line Photonis XR5 / INTENS is too and as you said at least holds against XR5. A PVS-14 with XR5 is around the same as far as I know, somewhere a bit more, somewhere a bit less.

Thx for sharing your thoughts on this !

Another video added: City lights locally, and mountains of Bergen

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AsejwN4K0386gsBmpQ363uA4W-h-VQ