I purchased a new China Aerofara mini computer to use for Plex serving to replace my aging Kodlix that had been working fine as a Plex server, but I wanted to see what a new CPU and the new Intel graphics could do with my media library. (I have nothing in 4k except video test files.)
I messed around with it for a while in Windows 10 and since it was Windows 11 compatible, I went through the upgrade to see what that looked like. I think went back to the task at hand and did a wipe and install of Ubuntu Server to prepare it for its Plex serving duties.
Tried Ubuntu Server 20.04 LTS and it did not recognize the Intel integrated graphics at all. I noticed that during the Plex server install, it didn't see the Intel integrated GPU.
I figured it was the old kernel, so instead of fighting with upgrading Kernel and getting an unknown status as a result, installed the latest Ubuntu Server. (21.10) That got the GPU recognized, but still no Hardware Transcoding.
After messing around, here is the fix I found:
Create and then edit the file:
/etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf
Add the line below and save the file:
options i915 enable_guc=2
then run this command:
sudo update-initramfs -u
That is it, you should now have Plex doing hardware transcoding with your Jasper Lake Intel IGPU.
If you are having problems with Ubuntu Server 21.04 and it not doing hardware transcoding, there is a kernel bug. See this reddit post for help: https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/tx0az4/comment/ihcfbq4/