Has any one evaluated the two approaches for running Windows (XP, Vista) on Linux (fedora) which is more stable, resource usage, audio/video, active development, etc, etc.

I'm in the process of deciding to use wine or virtualbox for audio/video streaming using winamp/shoutcast/edcast . My current tools are all in windows, but would like to move completely to fedora.

Any help/insights will be much appreciated.

Wine doesn't run xp or vista. It doesn't emulate anything. Wine Is Not an Emulator. It makes use of the dll files etc to enable the running of winblows apps without the need to install either operating systems.

All you need is the sc_serv and sc_trans_linux files from the shoutcast website to stream natively.

I also use shoutcast... Though I dont need any virtualization software or wine, I dont even use winamp. I've found that Exaile and Songbird have shoutcast plugins for streaming shoutcast audio.

Well, I have been using VirtualBox for ages in PCLinux and find it works just great to run Windows XP and the apps in it I need, namely Word Publisher which there is no compatible alternative to in Linux.

WINE, can be used to just run Windows Word Publisher, but it is so easy to just load the whole operating system and use both Linux and Windows, sharing files, copying and pasting, etc, etc, without having to partition the HDD.
Yes, you do still have to have virus protection for the Windows operating system, but as VirtualBox copies images (if you wish) these are easy to reinstate if the operating system becomes compromised.

The latest incarnations of VirtualBox work really well.
I also use it on my Vista Business Laptop to run PCLinux MiniMe cause I just love Linux:-)

Cheers

Malai5