Use a tuple for it.
>>> ext = [".3g2", ".3gp", ".asf", ".asx", ".avi", ".flv", \
".m2ts", ".mkv", ".mov", ".mp4", ".mpg", ".mpeg", \
".rm", ".swf", ".vob", ".wmv"]
>>> ".wmv".endswith(tuple(ext))
True
>>> ".rand".endswith(tuple(ext))
False
Instead of converting everytime, just convert it to tuple once.