Homepage slideshow settings

Is there any way to control the homepage slideshow settings other than the very limited settings shown when editing the page ? Images for the slideshow seem to be randomly chosen but we need to be able to select which properties are displayed and then also which image from that property is used – it seems very odd that this functionality isnt available ?

A site we are building now, takes xml feeds from multiple sources and therefore they have no control over the images especially what size are provided – the slideshow really doesnt display well at all when smaller width images are used which is to be expected