I just went to Pioneer's site, signed up, and found out they have discontinued it...Now what????

try partstore.com

I called Pioneer (after I ordered a ribbon cable from Best Buy) and was told the reason they stopped offering them, is that they are now offering a FREE one time replacement of this cable. It does not matter whether it is out of warranty.

so did you just contact pioneer for the part directly and they comped it?

No, I sent Pioneer my unit and they did the fix for free.