Re: Dsp prosessors
Both Analog Devices and TI have wide range of dsp processors and both have evaluation dev. tools which you can download or order and try out before spending any money.
If you need hardware, TI has some of the cheapest dsp starter kits including the full dev. tool (no timeouts unlike Analog's tools). Check out their website. For $295, you can get an OMAP starter kit with Monta Vista real time linux (the windows version is $5000). The possible downside (if you don't use linux) is the dev. tool is for linux.