I found the Samsung HMX-300 camcorder to be a bit unstable during some actions, it failed to initialize 32GB SDHC card properly in the beginning and could hang indefinitely after USB operation. I decided to look for a firmware update.

The support page with firmware download does not have an instruction for an upgrade in English and I was not able to update the firmware – the camcorded did not ask me to do this even when I copied the file (zip or unzipped) to the card. Then I found the proper article on korean Samsung web site So, here’s what needs to be done for manual firmware upgrade:

• Download the firmware archive file (h300_FW_1204131.zip) and unzip the contents (single h300_firmware.bin file) to the root of the SD card.

• If the battery charge level is less than 3 points, the camcorder will not attempt to update the firmware.

• Turn on the camera with SD card containing the firmware update, a dialog box will appear asking you whether you want to upgrade.

• After upgrade is completed the camcorder will be automatically turned off and the firmware file will be deleted from the SD card.

My mistake was that I tried the update when the battery was not full (3 points is the 100% charged battery). After the battery was completely charged the upgrade went through perfectly.