NTFS and HFS+ are both journaled file systems. Tuxera NTFS($31) is generally quite stable, though it is not as fast as using a native HFS+ drive. My main issue with using an NTFS shared drive is that OSX will put .ds_store files everywhere. Some say that BlueHarvest($15) works fine to get rid of them; I just ignore all the ds_store files while using windows.
As for transparency, if by that you mean integration with OSX, Tuxera does a good job of it. Works just like any internal hard drive.
If you are going to be using windows formatted drives often on a (your?) mac, you might want to look into Blueharvest. It will automatically clean up those files so they don't show up on Windows computers.