Shairport Sync can be built as an AirPlay 2 player (with [some limitations](AIRPLAY2.md#features-and-limitations)) or as "classic" Shairport Sync – a player for the older, but still supported, AirPlay (aka "AirPlay 1") protocol.
+When built for AirPlay 2, Shairport Sync can play stereo and multichannel (5.1 and 7.1) audio, including lossless 24-bit stereo at 48,000 frames per second.
+
Metadata such as artist information and cover art can be requested and provided to other applications. Shairport Sync can interface with other applications through MQTT, an MPRIS-like interface and D-Bus.
Shairport Sync does not support AirPlay video or photo streaming.
* Some advanced topics and developed in [ADVANCED TOPICS](https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/tree/master/ADVANCED%20TOPICS).
# Features
-* Outputs AirPlay audio to [ALSA](https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Main_Page), [sndio](http://www.sndio.org), [PipeWire](https://pipewire.org), [PulseAudio](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/), [Jack Audio](http://jackaudio.org), to a unix pipe or to `STDOUT`. It also has limited support for [libao](https://xiph.org/ao/).
+* Outputs AirPlay audio to [ALSA](https://www.alsa-project.org/wiki/Main_Page), [sndio](http://www.sndio.org), [PipeWire](https://pipewire.org), [PulseAudio](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/PulseAudio/), to a unix pipe or to `STDOUT`. It also has limited support for [libao](https://xiph.org/ao/).
* Metadata — Shairport Sync can deliver metadata supplied by the source, such as Album Name, Artist Name, Cover Art, etc. through a pipe or UDP socket to a recipient application program — see https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync-metadata-reader for a sample recipient. Sources that supply metadata include iTunes and the Music app in macOS and iOS.
* An interface to [MQTT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MQTT), a popular protocol for Inter Process Communication, Machine-to-Machine, Internet of Things and Home Automation projects. The interface provides access to metadata and artwork, and has limited remote control.
* Digital Signal Processing facilities – please see the [DSP Wiki Page Guide](https://github.com/mikebrady/shairport-sync/wiki/Digital-Signal-Processing-with-Shairport-Sync). (Thanks to [Yann Pomarède](https://github.com/yannpom) for the code and to [Paul Wieland](https://github.com/PaulWieland) for the guide.)