Language immersion from birth is crucial to a child's language development. However, language immersion can be particularly challenging for hearing parents of deaf children to provide as they may have to overcome many difficulties while learning sign language. We intend to create a mobile device-based system to help hearing parents learn sign language. The first step is to understand what level of detail (i.e., resolution) is necessary for novice signers to learn from video of signs. In this paper we present the results of a study designed to evaluate the ability of novices learning sign language to ascertain the details of a particular sign based on video presented on a mobile device. Four conditions were presented. Three conditions involve manipulation of video resolution (low, medium, and high). The fourth condition employs insets showing the sign handshapes along with the high resolution video. Subjects were tested on their ability to emulate the given sign over 80 signs commonly used between parents and their young children. Although participants noticed a reduction in quality in the low resolution condition, there was no significant effect of condition on ability to generate the sign. Sign difficulty had a significant correlation with ability to correctly reproduce the sign. Although the inset handshape condition did not improve the participants' ability to emulate the signs correctly, participant feedback provided insight into situations where insets would be more useful, as well as further suggestions to improve video intelligibility. Participants were able to reproduce even the most complex signs tested with relatively high accuracy. (Contains 10 figures and 2 tables.)