Hi @MadDog05
Welcome to the forum, Glad you found us.
This is a long answer (as most people know I have no issues with that), however, bear with me.
The firmware will come in 2 forms, .bin files and .hex files. the .hex files were for the older 16-bit boards and required a bootloader to be able to flash them, Generally not a hard process however just an extra couple of steps to deal with. With the new 32-bit boards they generally only require the bin file on an SD card and if everything goes well the printer sees the new firmware on the next boot and flashes itself, to paraphrase “boom, bobs your uncle”.
Now onto the bad part, some of the 32bit boards are WAY too sensitive to the firmware to load, They will not accept new firmware if the version is the same as the previous one, It will not accept it if the filename of the new firmware is exactly the same as any other firmware installed on it before. It will not flash the firmware if the SD card is not Empty and formatted with 4092-byte blocks, “I will not, will not Sam I Am”. It seems some days it will not flash if the phase of the moon is waxing… Kidding of course but you get my point.
So onto where to get it, Yes you are correct there are 3 repositories and none of them are synced, I generally download from “official creality” only if it’s not there will I go to Creality cloud as a backup. Most of the time you will have to crack the case open and verify either the version number of the board or the ID# on the chip. this is normal, although the name you provided has both 301 and 401 in the filename as the creality mentioned the STM401 bootloader I would lean toward the 401 processes.
Just to ask the first question last, is there a specific reason why you are updating the firmware, I am unaware of any specific issues that would cause a firmware update to be required. I generally never update the firmware unless there is a specific issue that affects me that is fixed in the newer firmware. Just because the firmware is newer it does not mean it’s better.
If you can send me the links to the videos you have let me have a look at them and I will see if I can pick heads or tails out of it. I have no issues with that at all.