Heres my take on the whole debate.

At close in ranges and in higher light conditions its not that big of a deal and the juice may not be worth the squeeze, but if you utilize NV in extremely low light conditions and environments where you need to look out at distances over 100 meters then you may very well want to invest in unfilmed tech, or if you work in non permissive environments where you need to stay as passive as possible to avoid detection because the opposition has a NV capability. A lower performance unfilmed system will still beat out a high performance thin filmed system in low light conditions.

On the front end the $1000 price hike is quite a bit, but when you factor in the usable lifespan of a tube and the many thousands of hours of use its going to give you I think it is justified if youre going to be using it frequently. If you are a casual user, maybe once a month or so, then save your cash and go thin filmed.

While not necessarily capturing the technical nuances of it, the best way I can describe the difference between thin-filmed and unfilmed is to say that in a tube with identical specs, it's going to be somewhat like the difference between watching a movie on an SDTV versus an HDTV.

That is to say, to most people with functioning eyeballs, the HDTV is going to be unequivocally better. The image will be cleaner, crisper, and higher quality, you'll be able to resolve more and finer detail, and colors and contrast will "pop" more.

Now, whether or not this is worth it the extra cost?

That's a somewhat different question, but again, one that can relate to the analogy.

First of all, for better or worse, your age and eyesight are going to matter. Younger people with sharper eyes are going to notice a much bigger difference between the two, hate to say it, getting old sucks.

In a practical sense, what does this improvement in image quality mean in the field? Maybe nothing, maybe a lot--depends on what you're doing. That is to say, if for example you're working in a maneuver environment with multiple teams/elements, the ability to better resolve small details of uniform, equipment, weapons, etc., could be a huge factor in preventing green-on-green situations. In a law enforcement setting it could prevent politically dicey use of force incidents, and in a hunting setting it could potentially increase your ability to detect and discern camouflaged animals (though you aint going to beat an E-COTI for that ).

At the same time, other elements of the "whole equipment package" can have an effect on the above as well, as mentioned Fusion technology, or even just the use of IR illumination, the tube itself is not the only factor that can make a difference, and it would be nearly impossible to sort through every single "what-if" combination of scenarios and equipment.

On a more subjective level, and on a "user experience" level, for some people, once you've seen an HDTV versus an SDTV, you just can't go back. The difference in image quality is so great that "stepping down" can effect your level of enjoyment.

Some people, on the other hand, barely notice a difference, even if they can recognize that one is clearly better, it doesn't really matter to them--if they can still watch the movie, they can still enjoy it, and the fact that the image quality is slightly poorer doesn't really effect the experience in a meaningful way.

Ultimately, people have to make their own choices based on what best meets their needs, budget, and yes, how it effects their enjoyment and satisfaction, and there is no "universally applicable" answer to whether or not it's "worth it" to go unfilmed over thin-filmed.

Beyond that, what I will say about the differences in tube cost:

What you are generally seeing is actually not a significant difference based on tube type--but rather a difference in tube grading.

For full up "mil-spec" image intensifiers, the cost of an ESA YH/YG-series image intensifier is not that far off from the cost of an L3Harris mil-spec Unfilmed image intensifier.

The difference is that for a number of reasons that I will not go into here, ESA tends to sell more "fallout" tubes on the commercial market in their SLH and XLSH product lines, which are therefore the much more common thin-filmed tube variety in commercially sold systems. And again--as folks have seen with our NGI XLS line, the fact that they're "fallout" tubes does not mean that they are bad tubes, or even low performing tubes, but they are tubes that have failed to meet one or more mil-spec qualifications (again, these do not all show up on the spec sheets), it is what it is, and they are therefore sold at a lower cost, both to vendors/assemblers, and usually then to consumers, than systems using mil-spec tubes.

L3Harris does also offer lower cost unfilmed tube variants, often referred to as "-1701" or "-1601," but they are far less numerous or common, however they would constitute the best direct cost comparison to ESA SLH or XLSH-based systems, and often are sold at a significant discount relative to mil-spec units.

~Augee

Well said....

I mean, if you can perceive a difference, and that it's just not significant, then we don't really disagree, I didn't really make a value judgment about "worth it" or "not worth it," I'm assuming you mean more my analogy--but that's the rub, to some people it's a bigger difference than others just based on their individual eyesight and personal preferences. It's a different matter if your saying there is no difference.

Price and budget versus personal priorities factors in most of all here.

For the record, I've got terrible eyes, and I'm definitely in the "SD/HD/don't care" camp--at the same time, if given a choice with no penalty, I'm not a crazy person, I'm going to choose higher quality, but I'll use whatever I have available to me and make the best out of it--and I've been in positions where my only choice was the lowest of the low, and others where "I gots that good good shit."  

~Augee