Abstract: Taking account of both software and hardware, the effective real-time high-speed inspection as an on-line problem to solve was investigated. The recognition process of strip surface defect images restricting the real-time aspect was separated, then it was processed specially by a digital signal processing (DSP) chip, and simultaneously recognized by a secondary classifier of support vector machine that combines the recognition rate with accuracy. By such an inspection system, the correct recognition ratio of defect images comes up to 98% with time controlled lower than 10 ms. It was proved theoretically and experimentally that the advanced TMS320C6416 DSP image processing platform thus developed can meet well the actual requirement of on-line inspection for strip surface defects in both speed and accuracy.