Letterboxing

The odd aspect ratio means YouTube and NetFlix videos play with giant black bars above and below the content (also known as letterboxing), and Instagram Stories fill the screen, but cuts off the bottom and top of the content.

Geocache clues make use of GPS coordinates, whereas letterboxing clues tend to consist of grid references and compass bearings.

Initially, letterboxing was limited to several key sequences of a film such as opening and closing credits, but was later used for entire films.

Interest in letterboxing in the U.S. is generally considered to have started with a feature article in the Smithsonian Magazine citation in April 1998.

Much of the terminology below is associated with letterboxing in the US and would be unfamiliar to UK letterboxers.

The growing popularity of the somewhat similar activity of geocaching during the 2000s has increased interest in letterboxing as well.