I'm looking to digitize a couple of Super 8 film reels using what's called a [Wolverine][1] digitizer/converter, which is a device that allows a person to digitize Super 8 film. However, while researching what the reviews had to say, I stumbled upon this paragraph:

> [In regard to the image posted by [user][2] Laurent Bellier on 8mm Forum regarding the Wolverine device] Neat Video and other software plugins can help lessen the prominence
> of the compression artifacts. But they can never recover the detail
> lost to those artifacts in the first place. It's a garbage in->garbage
> out type situation. The problem with these machines is they produce
> mp4 files that are bitrate-starved. Compression artifacts are the
> result when there is too much detail for the capture settings to
> reproduce accurately. Yes you can make them look a little bit better
> but that does not fix the actual underlying problem: that detail was
> never captured by the wolverine in the first place--it's permanently
> lost.

I'm already somewhat familiar with the concept of bitrate. Bitrate, if I understand correctly, is the amount of information from a video that is being shown on the screen per second. That is why it is generally better to watch a movie on Blu-ray rather than on Netflix because Netflix uses compression algorithms that are much more aggressive since internet speeds are a limiting factors. By watching the Blu-ray version, you are experiencing the movie at a higher "fidelity," since it's being shown at a higher bitrate. In other words, the Blu-ray offers a "truer" version of the movie compared to the Netflix version.

But what I don't understand is what bitrate has to do with MP4 compression artifacts. 

Also, what is meant by bitrate in the above case?

The way the above paragraph uses the word "bitrate," isn't bitrate the amount of information that is being captured per second from each frame *before* the video file is created *before* applying MP4 compression?

If my understanding of the way the word bitrate is used in the above paragraph is correct, what does the person mean when the person says that the Wolverine device creates MP4 files that are "bitrate-starved"? Does the phrase "bitrate-starved" mean that the device is recording each frame *at a low bitrate*?

If bitrate-starved means that the device is recording each frame at a low bitrate, what is the cause of this? Is a low bitrate caused by the machine scanning each frame too quickly, resulting in a low bitrate? Is a low bitrate caused by the light source not being bright enough to capture all of the information in each frame resulting in a low bitrate?

And, finally, what do MP4 compression artifacts have to do with a low bitrate of an uncompressed video file? Does it have to do with there being too little information (low bitrate) in each frame? Is that what the person means by "bitrate-starved"?

  [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Wolverine-Digital-MovieMaker-Digitizer-MM100PRO-dp-B0785H3FGN/dp/B0785H3FGN/ref=dp_ob_title_ce
  [2]: https://8mmforum.film-tech.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=011395;p=12